"YOU......Are you happy?"

These four little words, coming out of the mouth of our little Erin, earn a gold medal this week.  As you may guess, speech is delayed nearly 100% of the time in those with Down syndrome.  Oh, don't get me wrong, Erin chatters all the time!  Understanding that chatter -articulation- is the difficult part.  She knows what she is saying, but we, on the receiving end, sometimes fumble with our guesses.  We are becoming more seasoned at understanding her dialect. Nonetheless, we do guess, often over and over, in hopes of making sense of whatever it is she is wanting to communicate.  Erin does use sign language, which helps tremendously.  She is a master at charades...I'm always gonna be picking that girl, hands down, on my team if I want to win at charades.

When Erin is not chattering, in her sing-songy little voice, she often communicates in one or two word phrases, especially when she is serious about getting what she wants.  In single words, we can nearly 100% of the time understand what she wants or needs. But we have been at the one or two word phrases stage for a long time....


So, the other night Erin was lying in bed singing Veggie Tale songs, specifically Madame Blueberry songs.  Suddenly, she looked at her sister Eileen, who was lying in the other bed, and in perfect Madame Blueberry imitation said, "YOU.....are you happy?" She even pointed and used appropriate facial expression, just like Madame.

I'll take it.  Four words.  Perfectly articulated. Madame Blueberry accent and all.  It is times like these, times so ordinary for typical kids that is is taken for granted, that our Erin really shines and makes us so proud.