Year on from referral... about to see an NHS speech therapist!!!

So hello, mood is up again you'll be glad to hear :) Main reason? Spoken to an NHS speech therapist who will hopefully provide some therapy at long last (a year after referral!). I'm not holding my breath though of course. First she will come and meet Sasha here next week, then hopefully see her at nursery following that and give us some idea of how we can best help. I'm at a bit of a loss as I'm fairly sure we do the right things, such as speaking clearly and simply, and repeating words for her to mimic - but some she will and some she won't! We have caught her actually saying 'Tamsin' to talk to her sister a couple of times, although she obviously much prefers the pet name Ga-woo that she's used for so long.... she's not at all keen when Tamsin calls her by a 'pet' name in return though!

Sasha has seemed more positive of late though, and we were well chuffed when she stood up at the weekend to give a rendition of twinkle twinkle at top volume in the garden in front of our visiting friends! She also tried to copy the words of a song one of their girls sang - that she (or we) had never heard before, so quite impressive really. I also heard her singing baa baa black sheep to herself on the trampoline after; she's not really branched out into other rhymes much yet so every little helps as they say!

When I called my parents today, Sasha took the phone off me, held it confidently to her ear and proceeded to tell my mum at great length about everything that was happening. Very little of it was clear (in fact probably none to my mum at the other end of the phone line!) but I could pick out odd words. Videoed it as it happened as I think it's a good example of how Sasha is (at times). She has intonation and lots of vocabulary, but once she gets going it's as if she slips back into her own language - often with a raised 'ok?' at the end of the chat to see if we've understood. I've been more aware lately that I probably do understand a lot more of what she says than other people, and I do now automatically translate/repeat clearly what she has said to help everyone. That's obviously a worry for when I'm not around though! Although we've never tried sign language, Sasha can mostly explain in some way what she wants, by either going to it or trying to repeat more clearly - but again a lot of the time I pick it up from the context I think. And sometimes even I don't get it - at a friends house the other day she was quite clearly saying 'gummy bears' or teddy bears but we had no idea if it was food, a DVD or toy she was referring to, even though she was definite herself and got upset that we couldn't find whatever it was. Poor thing.

Went to a 'paint a pot' type place today, and both girls really enjoyed it although it nearly all went pear shaped when Sasha desperately wanted a red colour that we didn't have. Pulled it back by distraction and letting her paint a mermaid figure instead, so all happy at going home time. Tamsin has been so good with Sasha lately, she's really very understanding. But of course still young herself, so no surprise when she does get to breaking point quickly and wants to cover her ears when Sasha starts crying - I know the feeling!