Help truck

Emery is starting to put words together which is helping her communicate tremendously. She is a pretty quiet kid. She still relies a lot on her sign language and her vocabulary is not quite where most of the other kids her age are at. But these two word sentences are like magic. Mostly it is noun/verb combinations "Mama sit"or "Emmy eat", which are helping her and us get much less frustrated about how vague single words can be. "Apple". Do you see an apple? Do you want to eat an apple? Should mama eat an apple? But best of all has been that every once in awhile we get an interesting look into her little toddler brain.

Transportation is a new favorite topic. Our conversations are dominated by talk of buses, trucks and choo choos. As we were driving to the grocery store yesterday afternoon a brigade of fire trucks drove past us. "Ooh, trucks", she said. As it turns out they were driving to a car accident that was on our route to the store. It was a pretty serious accident in that the cars were very obviously smashed, but all of the drivers and passengers seemed to be alright. As we passed the smashed up cars Emery and I had a little conversation.

Emery: "Mama, oh no!"
Me: "It's okay. Those cars got into an accident and now they are all smashed up."
Emery: "Oh no! Owie?"
Me: "The cars hit each other but the people are all okay."
Emery: "Owie? Hurts?"
Me: "No, sweetie. The cars are hurt but the people are okay. Do you see the trucks? The trucks are here to help the people."
Emery: "Help truck?"
Me: "Exactly. The trucks are here to help. The help trucks came to help the people."
Emery: "Oh no! Owie. Help truck, Mama"

Then we had a little talk about fire trucks and ambulances and how they come to help people when they need it. "Help truck". Sometimes I feel like I narrate the world for a person who isn't getting any of it. It is tremendously rewarding when it feels like she understands and follows up with questions.