This Is What A Great Dog Looks Like

For 3 reasons:

1. It's mindless fun for a Friday night (and a Friday night during a heat wave, at that).
2. Maya's laugh is sure to make you smile.
3. Parker is the best dog ever.


 

Maya Finds Her Voice

 . . . in only 10 minutes.

This video is my attempt at a short-as-I-could-make-it partial-summary of our journey to find some sort of communication system for Maya.  It starts with a photo of Maya on her 2nd birthday and continues from there. It was kind of amazing to put together.







Answers to anticipated questions:

• The first app that you see is called Proloquo2Go, running on an iPad in the Otterbox Defender case.  
• The communication boards and picture cards for the Word Book were created using BoardMaker software. 
• The final app that you see, the one that we still currently use, is called Speak for Yourself and is running on an iPad in the AMDi iAdapter case (later footage includes the plastic keyguard that helps her not hit other buttons accidentally).

Our whole story doesn't fit in a 10 minute video, we also used sign language, labeled household objects with pictures, used a modified glove before we had a keyguard, and studied the work of many experts in the field of AAC (augmentative and alternative communication) as we went.

We are still a work in progress.

There is no finish line here. I make no claims at having done this perfectly, but we've done this all in the best way that we could figure out.

If you are a parent who is trying to figure out how to start the AAC process with your child, check out this link.

There's more information about our assistive tech journey here.

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.




 

Interactive Reading with the Talker

Last week I began gathering some information on how to use the talker most effectively when I'm speaking to Maya.  If you're not a speech/AAC (augmentative and alternative communication) person, this might sound strange, since Maya understands me perfectly without involving the talker at all . . . but think of it as learning a foreign language.  If you can only share your thoughts in German, but everyone is speaking to you in English, it's going to take longer to learn all of the German that you need to communicate.  If your friends and family began to mix some German into their conversations with you, that additional immersion would help you to learn more rapidly. 

So I needed to start translating myself into German. 

With the assistance of some research papers, some websites, and some super helpful SLPs (speech-language pathologists) who don't mind my constant trickle of questions (in person or via email) I was able to determine some best practices and started using the talker to model my speech on Friday (2 days ago). 

The reason that I didn't start modeling my speech with the talker earlier than now is because I thought that it might be overwhelming to open all of the vocabulary that I would need.  So, in prior months when talking to Maya I might say "You're having a waffle with syrup," only hitting the buttons for the underlined words. Now that she's using the babble function regularly to open up all of the words, I wasn't worried about overwhelming her by opening some more of the basic verbs, prepositions, articles, etc. So now I would say "You're having a waffle with syrup" and use the talker for the entire second half of the sentence (I say the whole sentence with my voice as well).

I'm not requiring her to say things to me perfectly. I'm just showing her what it would look like if I keyed my spoken language.

Friday night I spent a good deal of time brainstorming games and activities that we could incorporate the talker into to offer more practice with combining words, using articles, etc.  I remembered seeing a lot of SLPs do reading activities during speech therapy.  I'm sure that there's a name (that I don't know) for this type of activity----but basically they hold up a book and read "I ride the  . . . " and then the child says "bus" (or buh, or whatever approximation they can say).  I thought that this same interactive-reading strategy would be great for us to try with the talker, so when Maya brought me a book to read on Saturday I decided to try it out.

This video was taken this afternoon, 24 hours after the first time I tried reading the book with Maya and the talker.  It's pretty amazing, if I do say so myself.





A few things:

1. Did you notice that she turned the babble function on right before she said grocery store?  That's because I (erroneously) didn't have the buy catergory, which contains the button for grocery store, unlocked on the main screen.  So, Maya wanted to say grocery store, looked where buy should have been (she actually reaches out to touch the empty spot), realized it was missing, and decided to turn babble on so that she could access all of the hidden words.  Smart girl.

2. Once babble is turned on, it stays on the whole time.  How great is she at navigating through the (kind of overwhelming) full pages of words?! 

2. After Maya & I made the phrase "go to the grocery store" (around 1:42) I usually tap the top strip so that the talker will read the whole phrase, but I forgot to this time.  (She's seen me using the top sentence strip for about 3 days now, and she is now sometimes tapping it herself.  It's so impressive to see her observe and learn from the modeling.)

3. When she said "more book please"  at the end, I felt the way that a gymnastics coach must feel when their gymnast manages to stick the landing on a new, difficult routine for the first time.  That's a completely unprompted, spontaneous 3-word combination.  We're about 2 days into my attempts at more conscious immersion/modeling with the talker, and we're getting a lot of "milk please" or "book please" but the 3-word-combo is brand new (and awesome).


This was a pretty great way to end the day.  I'm looking forward to trying the same strategy out with other books----Maya clearly loves being able to chime in with the book, and it's pretty fun for me, too. 


Note: As I always say, I am not an SLP or a trained AT/AAC specialist.  I'm just a parent who researches her butt off and is trying to do what seems to make the most sense.  If you're a professional who watched the video and has pointers, other ideas, or possible corrections, please comment below or send me an email---I'm always looking to learn.  Thanks!

    

A dose of cuteness

First, a cute story.  The other night as Dave & I were heading to bed he went in to check on her.  She needed a diaper change, so her got her out of the crib and went to work.  For the first time, she was really talking in her sleep (as opposed to that one time she was signing in her sleep).  I could hear her from down the hall---little sweet noises "Ada lala.  A da. Ba ba da." etc.  So super adorable.  Dave said that she never opened her eyes, just kind of chattered a bit and then went right back to sleep.

Second, a cute video.  This one is care of Maya's preschool teacher, and features her holding hands and walking with her new little buddy, Elijah.  (Thanks also to Elijah's mom, who gave permission to share the video here---I always check in with other parents before sharing stuff.)  I think it's hilarious how the women in the background are trying to kind of promote chivalry by asking him to slow down and be gentle because she's a girl :)  (Maya clearly couldn't care less).  And I love whoever says "Come on, woman" because, well, that's exactly what I would have said if I was there!



I think I need to get Elijah to teach me some tricks, because she doesn't hold my hand that easily when we're out and about.

 

Notes from school, and video from the library

Today's blog update is brought to you not by me, but by Maya's preschool teacher (ok, I'll chime in, too, because I can't help myself).  These are notes from Maya's communication notebook (a book that travels to and from school and contains notes from me-to-the-teacher and vice versa.

From Tuesday:

"I think the app is great & she is doing well.  I def(initely) think you don't need to send in the book anymore.  She doesn't look for it really."

The app is great! She's doing well! I should stop sending the Word Book into school, and she's not looking for it anyway!  Woo hoo!  We had been wondering how to phase out the Word Book, since now that we've found Speak for Yourself (aka the perfect app) we want to focus on using solely that for communication.  As it turns out, Maya's not that attached to using the Word Book to communicate.  It's fantastic . . . and a little sad.  Our feeding therapist looked slightly horrified when I told her today, "Don't mention the w-o-r-d b-o-o-k, it's at home, we're phasing it out."  She was all, "Omg, you put so much work into that thing, and now it's done?!"  Well, yeah.  But we're moving on to something better. (And Maya still sleeps with the Word Book and will play with it at home, it's just becoming relegated to the status of security blanket, not communication tool.)

Today:

This one needs a little background. Maya's boyfriend just moved to the other side of the globe.
She had a major crush on a former classmate, and the feeling was mutual.  They gravitated towards each other, and it was seriously adorable.  Unfortunately, his family just moved clear across the planet . . . and we were all worried that she would take it hard.  She's been asking about him in the morning . . . I talk about who she'll see at school and she says, "Ah?  Ah!!!" (that's what she calls him).  She pulls his picture out of the Word Book.  It's a little sad. 

But then I got this note:

"Maya had a GREAT day.  Did such good listening & following directions.  Her & (blue tape blocks a boy's name) now hold hands while walking down (the hall)."

My girl apparently knows how to work a room.  Her former BFF has been gone for all of three days and she's already found a new partner in crime (well, for this week, at least).  I guess she'll never be lonely :)

And just for fun, here's a video from this afternoon.  After therapy we went to the library (a book of mine had come in).  It was a surprise---she didn't know we were going there.  And wow, was she excited:



You might remember that she's library-crazy, although we didn't know that until she got her hands on the Word Book and had words at her disposal for the first time (in the video at the bottom of this post, about 1 min in). All that she wanted to tell us was library-library-library.

 

Maya gets a tent

Last week we ran into Maya's former OT (from EI) and she was like "Wait here!  I've had a present for you guys in the trunk of my car for 2 months!"  We waited and she returned with a tent.  I knew Maya was going to flip out---she loves tents.  We drape blankets over the top of her crib and pretend she is in a tent and she can't get enough of it.

The next day, after school, we put the tent together (which was nice and easy--thanks, IKEA), Maya gleefully squealing next to me as it went up.  She dragged her word book inside and insisted that I close the flaps, so she could have some privacy.

I sat on the floor, listening to the ripriprip of velcro as she played with her PECs, arranging and rearranging and making little happy noises.  She didn't want me to open the flaps.  It was kind of boring.  Finally, I convinced her to let me open them up by suggesting that Parker join her in the tent.  "Pa!" she agreed.

This is the best!  Me & Pa in the tent!

Parker was less enthused.  Being confined in a little tent with only one escape route and an overzealous hugger is not his idea of the best time.  His survival instincts are too strong.  After a few minutes, I gave him permission to leave and he made a hasty exit.

Then Maya realized the best part of the tent---you can knock it over.  This was an accidental discovery, but a happy one.

She would throw herself backwards to knock it over, laying on her back and looking and the stripes and kick-kick-kicking her legs to her heart's content.  Then she would sit up, righting the tent, and throw herself backwards to do it again.

Here's a (pretty grainy, low quality) cell phone video where you can see her delighting in the knock-over-the-tent game:

Maya get surprised by her favorite song (video)

Maya has very specific musical tastes.  I'm happy listening to pretty much anything (techno aside), but Maya will yell "Done!!!" if I put on somone that she's not interested in.

Over the summer, her favorite album (by far) was Sigh No More (Mumford & Sons).  That CD ended up in my car, and when she got whiny or restless on long rides, it would instantly quiet her.  Her face would light up.  But after a few months, I could literally Sigh No More no more.

Luckily, she has a new favorite.  At the moment, it's not a favorite album, it's a favorite song.  And if you wonder how I can tell what Maya's favorite song is, I'll let her show you herself.  You can't miss it:



If all you see is a black square, click on it a few times and the video will appear.

*The song is "Someone like you" by Adele.

Separation anxiety has its perks

The past two days, boarding the bus has not been pretty.

The bus pulls down the street.

"Maya!  Look!   Your school bus is coming!"  (Smiles, wiggles in my arms, giving me a big hug).

The bus stops and we approach.

"Are you going to ride the bus like a big girl?! To school?!  Oh, you're going to have so much fun!"  (Smiles, giggles, wiggles)

I go to hand her over to the bus matron.

(PANIC.  She clings to me.  She starts to cry.  I'm a mess of untangling the four limbs that she's wrapped tightly around me, attempting to hand her heavy self--as she's now gone totally limp---over.  She alternates between floppy and stiff in an attempt to not get buckled into her seat.)

I wave and blow kisses and then turn and walk away.  I feel like staying to watch is just more painful (for both of us).  Sigh.

So, that's not fun.

The upside of all of this is that she's totally loving me right now.  Absence has made her little heart grow fonder---and while I used to be a given, a constant presence, now I'm suddenly special.  Desired.  Dave & I were playing with her last night, and she kept coming over to hug me.  Me!  She's always been a daddy's girl and suddenly she just wants mama.  I'm not going to lie, it's kind of nice.

I know it won't last forever.  I also know that it's probably embarrassingly egotistical to find separation anxiety flattering, but I don't care :)

She's a happy girl getting off the bus and coming to play with me.  And Parker, too.  I've taken him down to pick her up a few times and it's adorable.  Yesterday Dave was home by drop-off time too, so I was able to get a little video of their after-school reunion:

First day of preschool!

It was a great day :)

Things went down pretty much exactly the way I expected them to---Maya remembered the school & where her classroom was, and she just wanted to go!  We had to spend a few minutes in a conference room (we arrived slightly early) and I had to keep pulling her back as she tried to escape towards the classroom.

Upon arrival in the classroom, she was amused to see the cardboard animals on the walls!  The jungle/safari decorations are adorable (there were even vines) and she was taking it all in.   She found some cookie cutters on a table and started playing with them, which led the teacher to bring out some playdough.  Maya is typically a playdough fiend, but she held back a bit and watched the other two kids (who are so cute, by the way.  Preschool is like the most adorable thing I've ever seen.) play.  After a few minutes longer I went over to her and our conversation went like this:

Me:  Maya, can you say bye to Mommy?  I'm going to leave and you can stay here and play.

Maya: Bye!

Me:  Bye!  (Kisses her head)  Can you blow me a kiss?

Maya: (blows a kiss)

So. cute.

The report that I got at the end of the day was basically like this:  She did good, no tears.  She liked to observe things, but also joined in. (I was wondering about this---she likes to hover around the edges of activity and watch for a while, until she's used to things.)  She didn't eat a lot or drink her milk. (Not super surprising, since I'm guessing she was just overwhelmed and not wanting to eat.)  She gave Adam* a lot of hugs, and tried to give Max* a hug, but he wasn't having it.  (LOL!)

Anyway, without further ado, I present Maya's first day:



*names are changed to protect the hug-ees.

I think she wants to go to school

We stopped by the preschool today to drop off some giant cardboard animals.  Remember the ones that I scored for Maya's birthday party?  Well, her classroom is starting the year with a jungle/safari theme, so I volunteered them to the teacher as potential decorations.  (I'm not sure if they'll really have room for them--they're huge!---but she said to bring them in.)

Maya got to meet her teacher & assistant teachers (who were all lovely).  As they crowded over her stroller she got a little whimpery (we were also coming straight from the hospital, so it had been a long morning).  They asked her if she would like to come to school and play in the classroom and she nodded with wide eyes.  They showed her her special chair (with her picture on it---so cute!) and some of the decorations.

We only stayed a few minutes--they were busy setting up and I didn't want to invade their time.  I said to Maya "Say 'bye-bye'" and she said "Buh!"

And then her face crumpled.

And then the tears started.

I smiled sheepishly and told them, "I knew this would happen.  She's really ready for school.  She doesn't want to leave."  And to back me up, she started pointing at the classroom through her tears, signing play, and trying to get out of her stroller straps.

Through the hallway, down the elevator---hysterics.  I kept telling people "She doesn't want to leave school!"  and they were sympathetic.  In the downstairs lobby, we pulled over to have a talk (and videotaped it to show Dave how much she wanted to stay). 

(Lest you think I'm heartless, I was holding my cell phone camera in one hand and off to the side.  I wasn't hiding behind my cell phone instead of consoling her.)

My I-don't-want-to-leave-school girl:



She's so ready.

I hope she feels the same way on Thursday.

Allow me to translate . . .

If you want to learn how to speak MSL (that's Maya Sign Language, a lesser known dialect of ASL) then all you have to do is watch this handy dandy translation video.  I made it for her preschool teacher (she starts on Thursday!  Only a few days left!) and thought I'd share it here, too. 





In other news, tomorrow brings us back to the geneticist to run a new test for a syndrome that's been on my radar for a while now.  I've been meaning to write about what that's like (from researching syndromes to waiting for test results) but this whole about-to-start-preschool thing is consuming right now. 

Soon.

A girl and her dog (and last day for the giveaway!)

How about a little Maya-Parker love on this gorgeous Monday afternoon?

One of the sweetest things about returning from our vacation 2 wks ago was the reuniting of Maya and Parker (who had spent the week at my in-laws).  Maya spends a lot of time petting him, hugging him, and giving him kisses . . . and he spends a lot of time being very patient :)  He seeks her out, too---bumping her with his nose, bringing her his toys, etc.  Getting her a dog was possibly the best thing we've done for her :)

Check out the video (taken from my phone---sorry for the quality) from this morning.  You'll want the volume on to hear all of her giggles, which escalate when he decides to throw in some little barks.  2 notes:  1.  Although you can see his mouth opened a little at times, know that he's extrememly gentle with his nose/mouth/teeth  2.  Maya's hugs are not usually quite so vigorous. 



How sweet is it that he wrestles out of her hug just to turn and lick her nose?!


Today is your last chance to enter the Leapfrog Letter Factory DVD giveaway!   Winner will be picked & posted tomorrow evening----you can enter up to 5 times, go check it out!


Also, next week I'm taking Maya to see the geneticist to have a new test done.  I've got some thoughts on that, but no time to sort through them just yet.  We're too busy enjoying the last throes of summer (and some beautiful post-hurricane weather) to get too serious at the moment.  Summer fun now, deep thoughts later.

Lessons learned on vacation

We spent a long weekend visiting family and learned several important lessons:

1.  Maya learned that if Daddy says "Sure, you can drive" it likely means we're just sitting in the car and not moving (but it's still pretty fun).

2.  I learned that if I need to rinse out the milk bottle and Dave says "Dude, just roll down the window and dump it out.  It won't fly back up at the car." he is being sarcastic.  Very sarcastic.

That says "extensive splatter".  A phrase typically reserved for crime scenes somehow fits our vacation photos.  Also, milk + 90 degree heat = a delicious smelling car.

3.  Dave learned that Maya's got jokes.  You think he would already have learned that, but I guess not.  This was the first time ever that he played his favorite kid joke on her (if you know him in real life, you've probably seen this one in action) . . . and she showed him.  "Fool me once, shame on you . . . fool me twice, there will be payback."

She's got beauty, brains *and* jokes . . .

Maya is really funny.  She loves making us laugh, and quickly realizes what cracks us up . . . even when we try to hold it together.

That's the only intro you need.




With that sort of physical commitment (and total disregard for her personal safety when a joke it on the line) she may just be the next Chris Farley.

Listen up!

Before this afternoon, Maya's spontaneous vocabulary was only 1 word:  Bye.  She loves bye and bye-bye and will shout them any time someone appears to be leaving anywhere.  People stand up at the dog run? "Bye-bye!"  We pass by someone in the hallway? "Bye!"  We leave the apartment? "Bye-bye.  A-bye.  Bye!"

(She can also say "mama" and "dada" but those are generally prompted.  And  "Mmmmm" can mean: milk, Maisy, Maisy video, moon, more, cow or moo.  "Hhhh" ("ha", but the a is silent) means "help".  These sounds are word precursors, but not true words, you know?  Like, we understand them, but not other folks.)

But this afternoon, with her fabulous speech therapist (who I know is probably reading this!) Maya latched on to another word. 

And it's soooooooooooooo cute.



Did you hear that sweet little voice?  Saying a real word?  It's like a drop of rain to a man in the desert . . . on one hand, I wanted to jump out of my skin with excited, grateful celebration  . . . and then, so quickly, a thirsty voice in my head says "More, more, give me more, talk more." 

It will come. 

PS.  How cute is it that "done" appears to be a full body effort?  Adorable.

PPS.  Her first two clear words are "bye-bye" and "done".  We've got a strong willed little girl on our hands :)


(Hearing update:  We've got nothing.  More tests today solidified what we already know---when she uses both ears, in a quiet room, her hearing seems to be normal.  We need more detailed data, but it's difficult to tease out of her, as some of the tests are too sophisticated just yet.  We'll return at the end of the summer, and will be teaching her a new way to take a certain behavioral test between now and then.)

Get off my terrace

When Mama Pigeon (MP) laid eggs on our terrace, I was all excited with the nerdy science teacher hope for watching an egg hatch, and with the nerdy zoologist hope of showing my friends & family how weird looking baby pigeons are.

When they hatched, I was delighted that both chicks looked good and MP wasan attentive mom.  I happily documented their first week.

When the first week was done, I remembered something . . .


 . . .  I hate birds.

I hate you, birds.

Well, that's not totally true.  I like birds in nature (or at the zoo).  I like birds from far away.  But birds (in my humble opinion) are terrible pets.  They are not fun to own or care for.  They are noisy.  They eat constantly.  And, they are disgustingly dirty creatures.

Mama Pigeon is pretty dumb, even by bird standards (ok, that's just not fair.  Some birds are actually very smart, like crows.  Crows are super smart.). She made a nest on a cement floor.  Baby birds instinctively will back their little bird butts up to the edge of the nest and poop, so that the poop falls away from the nest and the nest stays clean.  When the mama bird decides to lay the eggs flat on a cement floor, there's no way to keep the "nest" clean.  

So, after the first week things took a turn towards "cesspool", and I had 2 options:

1.  Leave everything alone.  Nature would take it's course, for better or worse.
2.  Start cleaning out the bird's nest on a daily basis.

Now, option 1 could result in deaths on the terrace.  Even worse, it could result in the birds not growing in their feathers properly, which means that they would never fly away.  I wasn't a fan of these possibilities, so now I'm cleaning up after 2 ridiculous pigeons every day. 

And are they grateful?  Not even a little.  The younger one is a wimp and cries when I move him (or her) and the older one attacks:

You can tell this video is 1-2 weeks old, because I'm giggling. (and they're still pretty small).  When I'm out there now, I just mutter at them.

Allegedly, they're about 1-2 weeks out from starting to fly.  I'm waiting with bated breath. 

I'm only sad because you're still here, giant baby pigeons.

Here we come, walking down the street (for real!)*

Back in November I had a similarly titled post, in which Maya got to "walk" Parker from her stroller.  It was very cute. (Parker looks so much smaller in that video, by the way.)

But you know what's cuter than that?

Maya really walking Parker.  She's on her 2 feet, he's on his 4 feet, and she's in charge (for better or worse).  (Parker is clearly not convinced that we're actually letting her be in charge.  He keeps shooting me glances like, "Really?  Just stick totally with her?  You don't want me to heel to you?")



Although Maya seemed pretty confident that she could open the door herself, I thought I should help her out.  So here we were after we made it inside:  (This one is long, but there are many cute moments, so I'm not cutting it down.)



The best parts:
0:30, when she sits at the window and kicks up her feet.  Too cute.
0:40, when she calls Parker because he's starting to wander off.  Show him who's in charge!
0:45, when I tell her to tell Parker to sit, and she stands up and holds up 1 finger---that's our "sit" signal :)
0:51, when she suddenly decides that it's time to move along (because, as it turns out, she remembered that on the walk home we told her we would get the mail when we got home)
1:26, because falling down is no big deal.
1:42, when she's just pulling him along on an adventure, and the size comparison of him walking behind her makes it look like she's leading a pony out to a field somewhere.

I guess the whole thing is pretty darn adorable :)

Happy Father's Day! (from Maya)

To both of my grandpas, all 4 of my uncles, and most especially . . . my super daddy!  He makes up the best songs, knows how to tuck me in just right, and helps me have tons of adventures.  Just the other day, he took me out to play in the rain (my first time ever playing in the rain!):





After that, we took off my socks, shoes & splints and I got to run around in the rain & puddles barefoot, but the video didn't work out.

Thanks for being the best dad!  I love you!

Love,

Maya (& Parker)

Now I know my ABC's* (obviously, Mom, I've known them for a while but you never asked)

My girl's a genius.

Yesterday I mentioned that she recognized some letters at the pool, so today I was going to make some letter flashcards.  I printed out letters in a giant font, cut them out, taped them to index cards (half an index card per letter) and put them through the laminator.  My plan was to cut them out while we ate breakfast, but Maya was being especially cranky, so I gave her a whole laminated sheet of letters to play with, and decided to ask her about them.




Ok, I had thought that she would know A and M, because we do a lot of "M is for Maya" and the letter A just shows up a lot (like in ABCs, on blocks, etc).  But J?  H?  What in the world?  She must have learned them from her letter video and the general talking about letters that we do every day----but I'm shocked! 

So I finished the letter cards this morning.  They look like this:

And then I hole-punched them and stuck them on a key ring for each transport and storage.  I'm not sure what I'm going to use them for, but hopefully having them handy will lead to simple reinforcing moments.  Now when I say "Blueberries start with B . . . b-b-blueberries" I can also flash the card to make that connection.

(If you're a parent or educator who has done other letter stuff, or you have ideas on how to use the cards, drop me a line please--- uncommonfeedback@gmail.com)