Language is a complex thing, just ask Clara. She uses language her way. For example, everything to her is a "recipe". When she does a puzzle she looks at the "recipe" on the box, when Marc is reading the instructions for the fish tank (did I mention our new pets??) he's looking at the recipe. You get the picture. Personally I kinda like the mix up; makes me feel like cooking is important to her, which is my job, so in some weird, twisted way I feel like she is validating what I do, recipes are important!

Language is complex for Clara in less sweet ways too. She has just begun some speech therapy sessions with our friend and speech therapist, Lisa. Marc and I have known for several months that Clara's articulation was not on track but we had decided to ride it out, to see what improvement she'd make on her own. We threw that philosophy out the window when poor Clara B. showed major signs of stress over our occasional inability to understand what she was telling us. It is absolutely heartbreaking to try and decode a 3-year-old's excited chatter and not have a clue what she's going on about. What is worse is when she knows you don't understand and flies into a rage of tears and screams. After two particularly emotional episodes for Clara and myself it was clear that she would appreciate the help as much as we would so I called Lisa for guidance. And now here we are, meeting once a week until we decided to re-evaluate. I'm very encouraged by the information Lisa has provided; Clara is fine, just delayed in terms of articulation. All other aspects of her speech/language development are normal. This is what a parent wants to hear, "yes, there is a problem but we can fix it!"

With all this going on, add in 2 days a week completely in French and you know that language is a huge part of Clara's life right now. She is doing great, she's adding new words to her French vocabulary and seems proud of herself when she uses them. Recent additions to her vocabulary (that I know of) are: "poubelle", "doucement", "arret", "bonjour", "aide moi". I've gotta say, as someone who has been working on learning a second language for way too many years I proud of her for jumping in with both feet. But really, does Clara do anything half way? Nope :)