2 Years Ago

Two years ago was the day we first laid eyes on Deanna in Ukraine. We remember it so clearly. After being up for 30+ stress filled hours of travel and meetings, suddenly she was in the room checking everyone out. We knew immediately that we wanted her, but we had no idea how incredible she really was. She truly was meant to be in our family.

The Christmas Program

This year Deanna's Kindergarten class had a very nice Christmas Program. It was in the evening with many people attending. There was the usual singing, and musical numbers but each child had to memorize a few sentences and go down to the microphone by themselves and say their part. This is scary enough for the average child, but for a child with a speech disorder who did not speak until the age of 5, this was quite an accomplishment. Last year at this time Deanna could only put a couple of words together at a time, and she had trouble repeating many two and three syllable words. She had a fairly easy part but we did have to work on it extensively. We practiced enunciating each word, talking very slowly, and standing still all at the same time! I knew that even after she learned the part at home, it would be a whole different story standing up in front of a room full of people. Anxiety makes her speech much more difficult. She was quite nervous, but said her part perfectly and did not miss a word. We were so very proud of her. She has come so far.