An interview with Maya

Things here for the past month have been kind of a blur, which is why there have been periods of blog silence.  Between the court case and the genetic discovery (and the press that went along with each) I've had my hands more than full.

In the midst of all of that, we awoke one morning to big cracks in our (cheap, old) kitchen countertops---as if there had been an earthquake in the kitchen.  We knew that someday we would need new countertops, and apparently that day had arrived.  Unfortunately, our plans for a quick swap-out were thwarted when we were told by the measuring team that our cabinets weren't level . . . so we had to have someone come out to level them. Then when they started working, we found rotten drywall behind the cabinets and under our tile backsplash, so the tiles had to be ripped out, drywall replaced, and cabinets removed and reinstalled. The kitchen is back together now, but we still don't have countertops or a working sink.  Someday, maybe.  It's been really fun doing dishes in the bathtub and carrying pitchers of water from the bathroom (especially at 30 wks pregnant-this belly gets in the way).

Oh, and allegies have been kicking my butt, and causing recurrent allergic pink eye. 

And I'm leaving in 3 days for the big ISAAC conference in Pittsburgh.

So, yeah, it's been busy.

The silver lining in the chaos, as usual, is Maya :)  Her silly antics keep us amused, and she has started to use her voice more and more, which is fantastic.  Although she's technically nonverbal (because she can't use spoken language), she's certainly not nonvocal (she was as a baby, but not any more).  Dave & I can understand a lot of her sounds as words--even though most others can't differentiate the little things (eg. "buh" means bus or book, but "buh buh" means bye bye or bunny, depending).

The other day I interviewed her and was able to record a lot of her current words. She's really trying hard, and she's delighted by her ability to use her voice.  Clearly, her repetoire is quite limited, and several times a day I have to say "I don't understand---can you tell me with the talker, please?"  Often she'll chat while playing, but send herself to the talker when she wants to clearly get a point across.  It's nice to be able to use both options---the talker and her voice.

I love watching these videos because I know that a year (or two or three) from now I'll look back and think "wow, she's got so many more words now, and they're so clear!"  Someday.