Awe-inspiring moment...

A year ago, Sophie could barely talk. And, if it was not for the fact that she had almost half of her brain removed, she most likely would not be talking today. Her days would most likely be filled with seizures and her regression would be more evident.

Which brings me to yesterday afternoon. When I picked Sophie up from school. She told me she worked for skittles today...blue ones. But when I told her I did not think there were any blue skittles. She paused and said purple.

It sounded true. But I just had to double check. And this is the e-mail I just got from her teacher...


She did want to work for skittles and she wanted blue ones, I told her there are not any blue so then she said purple!!!! I am so excited that she remembered. She is such a smart girlie!!


She is remembering the details from her day AND sharing them with me. Simply AMAZING!!! She is talking in complete sentences. On average, 5 to 6 words but sometimes up to 8 to 10. My favorite is when she says...I want more cheetos PLEASE. As if shouting "please" makes it all better ;) Gotta love her.

She's back...

Our sweet Sophie is back. She is back to her old self. Well almost. She is still eating a lot and she is still fairly chubby but she has actually lost 2 pounds and her face is not as round. But she is happy!!! She is playing independently, smiling, laughing, just enjoying herself.

She is talking up a storm. She is constantly making some kind of sound or another. Sometimes words...sometimes grunts. She is so big now that she grunts when she is trying to climb up on something. Her new words...

Door (she said door when I asked her to walk the nurse to the door)

Pop (Grandma Debbie taught her pop while she was snacking on popcorn)

Night-night (she is signing night-night a lot so whenever I see her sign night-night, I say night-night and she just said it one night...out of the blue just so clearly that I had to think for a minute to remember if she had ever said it before)

Pe-Bah (short for peanut butter...she said it while standing in front of the pantry but I haven't heard her say it again)

Ever since we started weaning ACTH (we are at .5ml once a day), her development started taking off again. It is so wonderful to see her so happy and joyful.

There's more...

When I post, it is usually late at night. I am tired and my brain isn't functioning all that well. I try to get out the essentials and always tell myself that I will share all the good news in my next post but...

So here goes...

Sophie's expressive language continues to grow. She is becoming more and more spontaneous with her words and signs. She says things now that I completely have no idea what she is talking about but she is trying to find the words to tell me. It's different syllables put together that is suppose to be a word but I just haven't figured it out yet. But she is trying. She is trying to say more than just the words we ask her to repeat. That is such incredible progress. Her list of words continues to grow. She says "HeyHey" for Haley and a weird sounding "el" for Elsa. Oh, I just remembered that I left off "up" from the last list. She is also attempting to say "open".

Her walking continues to become more stable. She is going up and down the steps with more independence. Actually, she can walk up the steps all by herself now. Walking...no crawling. Sometimes it is even step over step (meaning only one foot on each step instead of putting one foot on the step and the other foot on the same step).

There's more but it is really late now and I really cannot think at the moment. I promise to share pictures and some sweet stories really soon.

More words...

I left "more" and "wall" off the list. She also said "go" in therapy today. Oh, and she also says "ball" spontaneously. I knew I was forgetting something.

Talking...

Sophie is talking!!! In the mist of everything going on, I haven't had time to post about all the great things that have been happening around here lately. The words aren't that clear and there are probably only a handful of us that would understand her BUT she is trying. Trying very hard. Here's a list (somewhat in order of when she started saying them) and I am sure I am probably missing a few...

mama
ball
rock
moon
tree
dada
wawa (water)
yes
no
this
bird

I can't even explain how excited I am that she is talking. I use to wonder if she would ever talk. Then the sign language started and then I knew she would talk...it was just a matter of when. Now she is talking. Mostly the words are prompted (meaning "Sophie can you say...") but she has said two words spontaneously...mama and rock. Mama she said spontaneously when I picked her up from preschool a few weeks ago and now she says it spontaneously quite often. Rock she has said spontaneously only one time and that was when she walked by and saw one laying in her basket. It is a start. A great start!!!