Natalia and speech therapy

    Natalia has been in speech therapy since she was almost 2 years old.  It has helped her immensely and gotten her to where she is today.  She is still a little bit behind her peers but she is so much easier to understand.  A big milestone that I was thrilled for her to reach was when she was able to say her name.  Now when people ask her what her name is she can confidently say it instead of looking to me to tell them.  Who thinks about whether a name will be easy for a toddler to say who can't hear very well at times when they are naming their babies?  Obviously not me.   I mean really, Natalia Titensor?  definitely not a toddler friendly name. 
    A funny side affect of her being in speech for so long is that she knows the speech therapist lingo.  Currently she is working on the k sound, so she will walk around the house and say, " k, k, k, sean"  or "k, k, k, alauna".  Obviously still a bit of a disconnect, but I'm just happy that she can actually say a 'k' sound.
    Last week in her speech time, Natalia tried to teach the therapist how to say 'Alauna'.  The therapist played along and mispronounced it.  So Natalia told her to put her tongue up to the top of her mouth and showed her how to really do it.  Natalia over exagerated the motion a lot.  She threw her head back on the 'A' and then with her tongue held against her top teeth she flung her head towards her chest on the 'launa'.  The therapist still didn't get it quite right, so Natalia did it again. 
     It is amazing the details that a 4 year old can pick up from 2 years of speech.