She's on her way!

What a fantastic day! Last night seemed to be the "unveiling" for Ruthie's language skills, as well as her signing. Just in the last week she has picked up three "new" signs. (We've actually been doing them for months but she's only just shown an interest.)

We started a new routine today - Ruthie is up at 8am. Regardless of what time she went to sleep. For the last three nights she has been partying in her crib until past 10pm. She sleeps in until 9-9:30 and then cat-naps around noon for less than an hour....therefore, she is tired and cranky by 4 and ready for another nap....therefore....not ready to sleep at night until a lot later than usual. So....no more afternoon nap and she now has a regular "get-up" time - something I've never made her do. I hate to wake her up, but this night routine cannot continue. So today, I made her stay up until 11:00 and then put her down for nap - normally I will try to push her until noon, but since she WAS up late last night and I dragged her out of bed at 8, I gave her a little grace. :) She slept until 1:00 (very unusual but this is what I'm aiming for!) and then we headed off to PT. 

Now that we have therapy five days a week (whew!), she needs to be on a consistent "this is my nap time" routine so she's not so worn out by 4pm. We now have OT on both Mondays and Tuesday, speech on Wednesdays, EI on Thursdays, and now PT on Fridays. She had been on monthly schedule for PT, but since she's still not walking, they want to put her back on a weekly schedule until she does.

This morning.....wow....I was speechless. It's like her language skills took off overnight. I got her up and she immediately pointed up to the light and said, "ligh!!" She later gave me her red monkey so I would turn it on for her, and when I called it a monkey, she grabbed it and said, "Elmo!" She doesn't even LIKE Elmo, lol. Then at breakfast, she was desperately signing "more" and I didn't know what else she wanted (she hadn't eaten a thing). I handed her milk (she's learning to drink out of a honey-bear straw cup - we squeeze it for her and she.....spits it out, lol) and she pushed it back and signed "all done." I asked her again what she wanted and she signed "more.....water." This is the first time she has EVER signed/asked for anything without my prompting her about it. So exciting!! 

This girl is gonna go places, ya'll. :)

 We arrived pretty early for PT, so she got to enjoy some time playing in the front seat of the car....and "cleaning" the window. :)