Work and Play

We had our first sign of a struggle at speech therapy this week. Much of the testing they do to see which phonemes a child can and cannot say is done by showing pictures or toy models of items and asking, "What's that?" Apparently, most kids cooperatively reply, "Cow," or "Cat," or "Pig." Wynn does not. She shoots us this look like You know it's a cow. I know it's a cow. Why are we having this conversation? Wynn likes talking in real situations, and being asked to identify items in pictures isn't real, so she shuts right down. When we get her playing, THEN she starts talking - mostly to tell us what we're supposed to do.

We're working on ways to get her to say the names of the items without asking the verboten, "What's that?" I've made up a game where I show her two items: "Wynn, I have a banana and a potato." Then I put them both behind my back. I pull out one hand, which has one of the toys hidden in it. I ask, "Do you think it's the banana or the potato?" She replies most of the time, so that's one way we can test her. It's pretty much our job to stay one step ahead of her, and it's getting harder all the time.

Another game at speech involved digging toys out of a big bucket of beans. She was, of course, to say what each toy was as she pulled it out. She pulled out what Becca expected her to label as bug; instead, she said, "Ladybug." A few toys later she pulled out another bug and correctly labeled it, "Dragonfly." She obviously has the vocabulary, and the syllables and intonation are correct; we're working on fine tuning the consonants - she tends to leave a few out here and there.

It's not all work around here; Wynn has also been having a lot of fun playing this summer. She likes to go to the park and ride on the swings. Splashing in the kiddie pool is a big favorite as well. When it's too hot to play outside, she loves her LEGO's, play food, books, and crayons.

We went for a walk at the nature center on the 4th of July. This picture shows why Mama's arms are getting so strong. (Wynn slept peacefully through the fireworks that night.)

Here we are checking out the interior of a small plane at our local airport's open house. Wynn says, "Airplane," whenever she sees one, which makes Baba very proud.