We are really good at charades.

Chase is an excellent communicator. She just hates using actual words. When she was a wee baby I taught her a lot of sign language which she picked up on really quickly, but I started despising sign language when that is all Chase would use when she should have been using words. Everyone says that teaching your baby sign language early on will actually help their language developement, but it didn't help Chase. We had to start making her stop doing the signs and make her say the actual word. About 6 months ago she started speech therapy. It was determined that she had a slight case of Speech Apraxia...meaning, although she understands everything, its hard for her brain to connect to her mouth to form words. The only way to fix it is through therapy. Although, I have to say that its a lot easier for her to express her serious attitude when she can do it through words. But, despite that, we love it. She still has lots to work on, so she will probably be in speech therapy until she is 3, but its so nice to hear her talking more and more. I love it! And it amazes me how much she knows! I didn't realize it when she wasn't talking. For a while, all I was really focused on was getting her to use more words, not realizing how many other things she was picking up on. Everyday she amazes me! Like this morning, she looked outside and told me the moon went night night, and the sun was up. To most parents this wouldn't be a big deal, but I loved it. I loved hearing her try to tell me this. I love seeing how smart she is, and knowing shes just been storing away all this knowledge, waiting until she could better express it to us. I love teaching her everything and hearing her say it back to me, instead of her trying to communicate with Jamison and I through signs and gestures! For awhile it felt like we were playing charades all the time. Hearing that sweet little voice makes me so incredibly happy.