Jibber Jabber

Sometimes I forget how far Ella has come in her speech. The progress seems slow and grueling and the day-to-day differences are hardly noticeable. She is nowhere near a typical 5 year old's speech and I long for the day that she comes home from school and tells me all about her day, who she played with at recess, what she ate for lunch, what made her happy, what made her sad.. instead of me having to read it from a communication notebook with her teacher. HOWEVER, the progress definitely is there. There are days her little jibber jabber mouth just won't shut off and she has no quiet voice, especially in church. :)

Last fall I posted a video to a friend's Facebook page of Ella wishing her CdLS BFF Payson 'Happy Birthday'. I was surprised to hear from friends who watched it and were so encouraged by listening to her improved speech that I promised I would soon share more videos of her talking..... That was 6 months ago. Oops. In my defense I honestly have been trying to take videos of her but it's been so hard for a variety of reasons. 1) Her talking is so normal now.. I don't really think much of it. Just like the dirty dishes in my sink, it's just always there and not something I even think about recording.. 2) Whenever I start to record her she almost always instantly stops talking and wants to watch herself on the video and 3) I swear some little boy is ALWAYS running around naked in the background!

I did manage to get a few videos though and put them together here. Enjoy!

P.S. Ella had surgery this morning for her 2nd set of tubes and an adenoidectomy. Thank you for all the thoughts and prayers! Everything went great-the doctor discovered her 1st set of tubes from 2 1/2 years ago were actually still in place (he couldn't see them previously), there was a lot of granulation tissue around them, and fluid build up behind. We're hoping this helps immensely with fluid drainage and improved hearing in the future!!