Not As Easy As It Sounds

I'm constantly working on improving Antalya's speech. This is the area she most struggles in. She has so much to say, but just struggles to express herself in a way that can be understand. She is so patient about it, and will repeat something as many times as it takes for me to understand. I'm learning to be patient like she is, although I still have quite a ways to go. 

Lately she is trying to say so much more. Here's a few of my recent favorites:

I always sing songs to the girls before they go to sleep.

Tonight Antalya wanted to sing the "I song".

I was clueless.

I quickly thought through every kids song I know to see any rhymed with "I".

We went back and forth for several minutes. 

Antalya, "I song". 

Me, "I don't know the I song."

Finally I heard her trying to find the words for the song and made out an "H, I, J" in her mutterings.

Aha - the alphabet!

And to think, all these years I've always thought A, B, and C were the most memorable letters.

Antalya is fascinated with babies. She loves seeing babies, pretending to be a baby, and looking at pictures of babies. But what she is most fascinated with is newborn babies. I've been trying to teach her the term "newborn baby" for months, but whenever she tries to say it, it comes out "corn baby". It gets some weird looks when she says it to be people with little babies. But I think it is one of the sweetest things.

I had a rough little patch with the girls tonight. Finally I just said, "Antalya, you are frustrating me!" She looked up at me with a huge grin while she did her best attempt to say "frustrating me." Then got such a pleased looked on her face that she had said something new, that I couldn't help but just melt on the spot and give her a big hug.

I love this little girl!