Thursday, November 29th

Poor Joanne. She has a handful of phrases that she gets stuck on all the time. As she is talking, she will say, "It's real", "I noticed" and mixes up he and she, which makes for some very funny conversations. The kids and I need to be sure we don't jest too much about this. Sometimes we can laugh about it, but if she is trying to express something more important, she gets angry if we joke about it. Her speech therapist has banned her from using,'cool', 'groovy' and 'thing', when she is working on her sentence writing project. She was trying to get away with sentences such as: The pencil is a cool thing.... The table was groovy. As she would say this, she would be looking up at the therapist out of the corner of her eye in a mischievous way. She knows it's not right, but is playfully trying to get away with it. We walked through the entire Garden State mall Wednesday after therapy. She was intimidated at first, and I think a little self conscious about her hand and limited speech. She was feeling pressure to start Christmas shopping, but for the most part we just window shopped. It was a challenge for me to walk by her side. In the past she would be ten paces in front of me, but now she was ten behind. I had a mission to accomplish... We will get through this mall! But Joanne was more interested in strolling and browsing. We walked for almost three hours. She was exhausted. We got home and she crashed on the couch for an hour till the kids came home from school. As usual, she jumps right in and tries to help.

As always, thank you all so much for everything you continue to do for us. It's real!