Wednesday, June 09, 2010

Sound and Fury

but I think it signifies something.

Verity is in the midst of an explosion in her speech and language development, and I am thoroughly enjoying watching it occur. The language development of each of the kids has been unique, but still Verity has managed to impress me multiple times.

Pauly was a delayed talker, then at around age 3 it seemed like a switch flipped and he began talking, not only catching up to the "average" but surpassing it. Roger was pretty much an average talker, right on track with all the milestones. Rosie said her first words absurdly early, at around five months. I know most of you won't believe me, as I didn't believe my own ears, either, until my husband, my mother, my mother-in-law and a sister-in-law all insisted she was in fact using words with meaning. Still, she only said a handful of words until she was over one, then her speech development was normal -- she added a ton of single words to her vocabulary, once she had a certain number she started combining them into phrases, then sentences, then she talked constantly. Wait, they all do that. . .

Verity's speech development isn't abnormal but it is different from the others. She has been adding lots of single words to her vocabulary, but she is also using a lot more "jargon" than the other kids did. "Jargon" here means babbling with the tone, cadence and inflection of actual speech. She's constantly telling me things using jargon and gestures, and seems to be very good at getting her meaning across. What's really interesting to me that there are whole sentences starting to spring up in the midst of this jargon, and not always short sentences, either. Things like, "Can I please have it?" when she wanted her sister's popsicle. So instead of combining already established vocabulary into phrases, then sentences, she's coming up with whole sentences that use words that she may or may not have used on their own before. It makes me wonder what else she is saying that I'm just not understanding but am mistaking for jargon.

Added to this is the fact that she seems to be able to repeat just about anything she hears. "Knock, knock!" she said the other day, after hearing multiples jokes in the car. Or when Roger tried to trick someone with, "I bet I can make you say 'how,'" she was the only one in the family who responded with "how?" She is definitely reminding me of how fun watching a child develop can be.

Tuesday, June 08, 2010

About the dog. . .

Bob and I are both getting to the point where we just don't think that taking in Louie is working out. Yes, he's learning. He now sits for his supper, and is starting to listen better in general, although it is obvious when we slack off on working with him as he doesn't obey as well. The problem is finding time for the training among all the other things I have to think about. Housebreaking had been coming along well, until he got into the habit of eating the fallen mulberries and this messed up his digestion. : / I think that as long as we can keep him away from the berries he'll be fine.

The pup has caused some problems – most notably digging up all the gardens that Bob had prepared and planted this spring. More than that, he is just one more thing for me to worry about. He chews stuff, he grabs the kids' toys, he steals food off the table (Fenja has NEVER stolen food off the table). We could take care of all these problems, they are definitely fixable with training and supervision, but finding time for the training and managing the constant supervision seems to be more than I can handle when I'm also trying to train and supervise four kids. ;) This is really too bad, as I really like Louie. A lot. He's an adorable terrier mix and I think he's got a great personality hidden under the puppiness. He's just so much work. Of course, so are the kids. . .

Wednesday, June 02, 2010

It's been awhile!

Well, I certainly didn't keep it going very long that time. I had planned to start my blog again to give me an intellectual outlet and a somewhat practical hobby, and look, I haven't posted in a month and a half! I'll go ahead and blame Facebook. If I have a picture, or a link that I want to share, then I share it there. It doesn't really require brain power, though. Maybe I'll try again to get this off the ground?