My 12-month old

Today we had our final assessment for Ava on her speech therapy. Basically, today we knew that they would tell us their decision, after one intake meeting and two 30-minute speech therapist meetings, whether she would qualify for services or not. It's a strange want... I want her to qualify for services, but I want her not to need services. I want her to learn to talk, but I do love her expressions and her miming. I want her to be able to talk because she should be able to, but I want her not to talk because then she'll stay my baby.

And in the end... she qualifies for services. Basically, she's advanced and on par for a three-year-old in a lot of areas--gross motor skills, general comprehension, etc. But one area--speech--she's very behind. So behind, in fact, that they classify her in that area as a 9-12 month old. In addition, because she had many ear infections (and eventually tubes) when she was a baby, that qualifies her for speech therapy through the program.

So what does that mean? Once every other week, a speech therapist (Ms. Rachael) will come visit us in our home for 30 minutes. She'll work with Ava and work with us on things we can do, such as give her choices--do you want juice or milk? instead of just you want juice? which she can nod her head to. We also need to start playing dumb with her and act like we don't know what she wants or is saying. In a house of 4 kids... are you kidding me? I don't have time for that! Get the juice and move on! Hmmm... maybe that's why she never had to talk in the first place?

Anyway, it's another journey in our life. I'm not particularly concerned. I believe a year from now I'll be writing about how we can't shut her up. But for now, it's what we'll do.