Colors, Signing, & Singing

Few people get the chance to really see Sheridan sign or hear him talk/sing... here's your chance for a little peek :)

The first 17 times he did this (yes, this is his favorite song right now so he requests it all the time), his words were a bit clearer (in terms of articulation) and he signed more. But this is a really good representation. You can see he knows the song, knows the order, knows the words, most of his words are approximations (some are much better than others), and he signs like crazy (and helps us sign!).

The only television Sheridan watches is 1, maybe 2, episodes of Signing Time a day. He has well over 200 signs that he picked up in just over 6 months. We owe that to Rachel Coleman. Love her (and Alex and Leah).

Enjoy!

What's My Name?

For the past few months Sheridan could approximate the syllables of his name with some prompting. This morning, he climbed up on our bed (his daily ritual to help wake up his night-owl parents) and proudly started saying his entire name, unprompted! This evening I was able to get quick video of it - it's not quite as clear as it was this morning... but it's still AMAZING. I owe you all an apraxia update, but that will have to wait. For now, enjoy :)

You'll notice he prompts himself for the "sh" sound (which actually comes out closer to an "s" sound), his "ri" sound is more like a "wah" sound, and "dan" is pretty darn close ;-)

Lucky In Love

I am so fortunate to have The Sisterhood... a local group of (more than 40!) "Sisters" who all have a young child with Ds. It's an amazing group of women - we laugh together, support new moms, support each other through IEPs/IFSPs, revel in every accomplishment, listen when life gets rough (Ds-related or not)... I don't know what I'd do without them. I truly love my Sisters.

And this past weekend some of us Sisters went to Lake Tahoe for some much needed relaxation and bonding time. Just us girls. Ahhhhhh... so lovely. We'd been planning the trip for quite a while, so it was nice to finally enjoy two days of focusing on ourselves (and each other!).

Here's a few pics from the weekend - and I have to give a very special shout out to Laura Beth's family who offered their AMAZING (the word hardly describes it) house to use for the whole weekend. Thank you for rejuvenating these mamas.

From left: Laura Beth, Gina, Jen, Sarah, Jenni, Jonna, me, Debbie, Cori, Amy, Sheree
(hot mamas, huh?!)

That's Susan on the right... she arrived a bit later :)

This is by far my favorite picture of the Sisters!