"Woo Hoo!"

Something pretty cool happened today...Rachel, other than baby babble is totally non-verbal. She has never said her first word or anything like that. When I say that people usually say "Not even Mama or Daddy?" No. Not even those...last time I checked those were words (sarcasm) and she has not said a word.

Anyway, she has a few of her own words and those are the only sounds she will imitate, so in addition to trying to get her to imitate basic sounds that we say to her, we also talk to her in her own words that way she at least successfully imitates something and realizes it's a good thing.

I had a friend over this morning, she and Rachel have become good friends thanks to fudge covered Oreos and Ghirardelli Peppermint Bark...it only took a year for Rachel not to run screaming from the room every time she came over. My friend kept saying "Woo hoo!" to Rachel and Rachel suddenly imitated her! More than once!!

Of course the first time she did it I was out of the damn room (figures.) My friend started yelling "She did it!" so I ran out of the room I was in and I heard her do it twice. We even got it on video but as most kids do, Rachel knows when the camera is on and she stops performing. She did do it once though in the very first second of the video and then she wouldn't do it again. Sad mommy....

At the end of the day (I hate that saying but it seems appropriate here) it's not actual words but she imitated sounds that were not part of "Rachel speak" and that is amazing.

Aaron has severe apraxia, there is no question about that, but Rachel's actual speech disorder is a mystery so I am and have been very eager for her to start trying to imitate anything other than her own stuff to see what comes out. Hopefully there is more to come in that area. I'll try to get it on video again where it's not half a second long.