Progress Report: Communication Meltdown/Weird Words

Eden was approved for weekly speech therapy through her early intervention program! This is such a huge and amazing thing because it should not have happened (long story which I won't post). At any rate, God allowed it, and it is so. She is meeting with an amazing speech therapist every Friday morning at our house and Eden just loves her. She helps me put the toys away when I tell her that "Miss 'J' is coming" because she knows that a new basket of toys is coming to be played with :) So fun to see.

At any rate, the story begins with these glasses. Steve got them as a gift for his 30th birthday, and they seem to have prompted Eden's first real word. Sure, there have been mutterings. Grunts. Sounds we couldn't begin to decipher or for the life of us understand. But on May 15th, 2011? Eden said "gasses". No joke. And she wanted "waffles" for breakfast. The girl with NO words chose THESE words. I would say I never would have imagined - but in all honesty, you can't put anything past this girl.

Miss J comes and sings crazy repetitive songs, over-emphasizes words/sounds/syllables, and grabs Eden's attention like nobody else has been able to do. And Eden soaks it right up. If you were a fly on the wall in my house (when I am alone, of course!) you would think I am a nut too. I go down the stairs with this girl and on every step you will hear me say "down, down, down!", over emphasizing every down in a very sing-song voice. Every single step folks. No joke. She will say "down" if I am lucky, so I keep trying. We make up songs for everything because Miss J found that Eden responds SO well to music. We say everything with sounds first- Ba-Ba-Ball? "Eden, do you want m-m-milk? I sound like I have lost my ma-ma-marbles ;)
We are still doing simple sign language along with things as well. Its hard to know sometimes what is helpful - some of the sounds she says with other words, she won't say for things she knows the sign to. She has said "mama" (only twice, mind you!), but has not once attempted to say the word "milk". She will still only sign puppy and has not attempted to say puppy or dog, etc..
Along with this sudden language breakthrough, she has decided to also show me that she knows how to say her letters. For quite some time now, she would point to letters when I would ask her "which one is …?" but I had no idea she had this in her too! I don't know how many she actually knows! I am excited to get out her letter cards over the weekend and sit down with her to see what she will show me in a one-on-one setting. She loves "her" letter of course, and she gravitates toward the letter "n" which is funny. But she has spoken at least 10 letters to me in the past two days! We haven't had her letter cards out since moving into this house two months ago, so her recent exposure is from the books we've read and the fridge magnets!
The past week has just been amazing. This is not to say that we haven't still had the fits and all of that - somedays are worse than before, some days are better. But in between the bouts of whining or shrieks, I am hearing her actual voice! I feel like I can actually start communicating with her! It is just such an incredible thing! When I catch her starting to get upset I can tell her to calm down and use words! It doesn't work most of the time but she seems to get it - and I have hope. And thats what I needed.