The phrases that stick

As I've mentioned before, Zippy has a speech delay. One of the side effects of this is that she does something called scripting, which means that she uses specific phrases to get a response. For a long time, she'd start a conversation with, "we rode on a boat," and that would prompt one of us to discuss the boat ride we'd taken with her. So it was her way of practicing conversation.

The problem with scripting is that it can be annoying to those of us with less than saintly levels of patience (read: Mr. LT and myself). We get tired of the same conversations, but we play along. Mostly. Right now, Zippy has for some reason latched onto the phrase (Wendy, cover your eyes), "Oh my shit!". Yes. Oh.My.Shit. This is my 5 year old's FAVORITE THING IN THE WORLD TO SAY right now. I have no idea what conversation she's trying to start. None. And no idea where she came up with this, because I swear I've never before uttered the words Oh.My.Shit. I've used (Wendy, cover your eyes) "Oh my God" on a fairly regular basis, and admit to thinking it adorable when Zippy started saying, "Oh my Godge" (which I belive is a cross between "oh my God" and "oh my gosh"), but never Oh.My.Shit. And OMS is making me insane. Really. And I can't figure out how to make her Just Stop Saying Those Words. I've tried numerous tactics, and none of them work. I'm thinking I'm pretty much a failure of a parent because I cannot defeat my 5 year old's love for this phrase. Sigh.

So if you hear a cute little blonde girl saying, "Oh My Shit" around town, please be assured that her harried parents in no way endorse the phrase. We're mortified. Really.

Zippy's school

I'm so late to the game. I just sorted out that the local elementary school is about 3 blocks from our new house, which really makes me happy - this means that we will be able to walk Zippy to school next year when she starts kindergarten. My guy apparently told me this in the very recent past, but somehow I didn't process that information. I'm such a dork.

I'm a little bummed that she won't be able to start this year -- but the cut off birthday for kindergarten is September 1, and Zippy's birthday isn't until September 21.

I do need to find some sort of preschool program for her - and I need to call the special education folks (the High Desert ESD) tomorrow to see if there's a preschool that does speech therapy. She'd qualified to do a preschool program this past year in California, but we weren't quite ready to let her go. (Another reason that we decided to keep her out of the program this past year is that we felt like the staff at the local school thought she was less intelligent than we know she is. She's a late talker, but that doesn't mean she isn't smart - my brother was the same way, and trust me, he's way too smart!)

Zippy*

Zippy - Easter 2007

Zippy was a surprise child. We didn't plan for her to be here, but she is, and she's full of life. I mean, the child doesn't stop moving from the time she wakes up in the morning until the time she is ready for "night-nights". She is totally herself, and absolutely knows what she wants to do and what she will not do. You cannot use reason with her, but big smiles and a little bribery help get us through most days.

Zip didn't start talking until much later than most kids - at three and a half we were told that her speech was way behind (like, um, two years behind). Most parents would worry, but really, we weren't so much worried as aggravated - it's HARD to know what your child is trying to convey when they're grunting and pointing at things instead of explaining exactly what it is that they're trying to get at. (Yes, I know infants don't even give you that much of a clue -- but really, infants grow out of that, usually within a year or so! We dealt with this for over three years - which makes us wonderful, loving parents, because we didn't toss the kid in her room and shut her door until she could talk. We thought about it, but didn't follow through, because we're so loving and nurturing. Really.)

Zip started going to speech therapy in October. She attends class three days a week for an hour and forty-five minutes each day. She loves loves loves her teachers and the other children in her class, and always has a big smile when she leaves for school and when she gets home. Last week she learned about syllables, and she's having a blast figuring out how many syllables are in familiar words. Once you give her a word with more than three syllables, though, hilarity ensues. ;)

Now the Zipster can't stop talking. I mean, the child goes on and on and on and on!!! But we're cool with it. It's still hard for her to always communicate what she wants, but she's better at getting her ideas across, and she cracks us up on a regular basis. When she doesn't have the words to tell you what she wants, she says "show me", and then we correct her, "Zippy, you say 'I want to show you this'," and then Zip says, "show me" again and we get up off our butts to see what it is she wants. Usually food. In the snack cabinet, where she needs help to reach things. (We do feed her regularly, and if we were smart, we'd probably move the snacks to somewhere where she could easily reach them. But we're not that smart. At least not most days.)

This child just brightens our days so much. I'm so glad she surprised us and is here!

*Thanks to Haven Kimmel for the nickname.