Sentences!

From when she was little, whenever we were around a lot of people for a weekend or went on a weekend or day trip, Emma seemed to develop overnight. Usually the development was language related --sounds or babbles when she was younger and, since summer, increased vocabulary or enunciation of words she already used. Most recently, over gatherings with family and friends for Christmas, we noticed that Emma has started to speak in sentences!

When we returned from Christmas with Kurt's family (details on our Christmas celebrations will come soon!) we noticed that Emma's vocabulary increased tremendously. We also noticed that she started to string a few words together to get her point across. During New Year's weekend we celebrated Christmas with my family (more on that to come too!) and we noticed that Emma was consistently using sentences! Tonight at dinner, we had peas and pork. About half way through dinner, Emma looked up and told us that she "needed sprinkle cheese on my peas and meat." At first we didn't quite understand her, but after asking her to repeat herself, we figured it out. She was very happy. We complimented her over and over again for being patient with us and helping us to figure out what she wanted.

Lately, Emma has been very good about telling us what she wants/needs. She has been very patient with us and will repeat what she says several times for us or will show us when we ask her to. She gets very proud of herself when she can convey her thoughts and we understand them. We compliment her constantly on how good she is talking and putting words together. It is fun to watch her talk, we can see the way she moves her mouth that she is trying so very hard to get the sounds just right. It is so cute. We are hopeful that by being able to express herself, some crying fits might be avoided.