She did it!

On Thursday Alex and Emily had speech. Emily's speech continues to amaze and frustrate me. I'm amazed at her progress and frustrated that I still can't understand her a lot of the time. But I can't always understand Danielle either and she doesn't have a speech problem, so I try to cut myself some slack in not understanding Emily. :)

But yesterday when she was done with speech her therapist brought her out and said "Emily, tell mama what we worked on" and Emily turned around and said...

"Shhhh..."

I almost fell out of my chair!! I knew she'd get her S sounds eventually, but I was not expecting this and it was so exciting! Before her retainer all of her S sounds went up through her nose (stick your tongue to the roof of your mouth and try to make a hissing sound through the back of your throat and you can approximate what she was doing). Once she got her retainer she lost all of her S sounds because she couldn't push them through her nose anymore. Soon she'll be getting her S's back, but for real this time!

I seriously think this is one of the best parts about adopting. When you give birth your kids (generally) go through the normal stages of development. But when you adopt you get to watch these kids who have basically been "given up on" thrive and grow and hit all kinds of milestones that would seem inconsequential for a typical child born in the US. It is so exciting and fun to celebrate all of the little/BIG gains they make!