My cute sweet daughter

We have been concerned about our 3 1/2 year old daughters communication skills for awhile now. We noticed that she didn't talk as well as the other children in the nursery and she seemed to fall more and more behind. We just had her screened for special programs for the school district and she did not pass her language and speech evaluations, she was "borderline" so they are going to have her more indepth evaluated and she may qualify to go to early preK this year. Anyway, we called them back in April or May to set up the screening. Since then I have finally discovered the time and channel Sesame Street comes on and she has watched that almost every day. Also her younger brother is starting to talk and is very good at picking up words and using them and also forming 2 word phrases. Both have greatly approved our daughter's comminication (probably why she was borderline and didn't score lower.) As many of you mother's probably know that they have a count dracula (or whatever his name is) who counts to the number of the day on his organ on Sesame Street. Yesterday they counted all the way to 16. Both of my children love Sesame Street, especially Elmo. My son still only watches about half of it before he gets bored but She-girl will be glued to the TV for most of the hour.

Last night she was supposed to be in bed. We have a loose bedtime. As a child I couldn't go to sleep right away so I usually stayed up until I couldn't read anymore and then would go to sleep. That is pretty much our philosphy. We have a bedtime for them but they can stay up in their rooms as long as they stay in their rooms and are not too nosy. Sheila usually climbs in bed when she is tired and sometimes (if she doesn't have a nap) it is right after we put her down and others it is 1-2 hours later. She is scared of the dark right now so we allow her to leave her light on and then when she is asleep we go in and shut off the overhead light and turn on her lamp.

Last night even though she did not have a nap during the day she was staying up. She has a counting toy that counts to 20. It makes a little noise and then says the number. It's sort of like the Count's organ. I heard her say 4 after the voice did. My husband and I continued to listen and she counted all the way to 20 with the machine. I could not believe it. I have only got her to count to 10 once and usually she skips 1 and some of the others she has a hard time saying. But even some of the ones she couldn't say correctly she attempted to say. I was all smiles.