The Gift of Gab

In case you couldn't tell by reading my previous posts, I like to chat.

 

I'm a talker. I love conversation, I love to tell stories, and I talk...a lot. Sometimes very loudly, due to having grown up in a household with a father with a slight hearing loss. The louder he turned up the television, the louder my mom and I had to talk...and so on. I often find that I can't control the volume of my voice and have to have someone tell me "You're talking very loudly right now..." in order to tone it down.

Boy is also a talker. A loud talker, since he spends most of his time with my parents and is having the same "talk loud enough for Granddad to hear you" kind of training I had.
Bubba was a very late talker, but once he started he never stopped. He even talks in his sleep, I swear. He can also switch topics at the speed of light and you find yourself utterly confused. His teacher told me at a recent conference that his vocabulary and intelligence are so above average that he can sit and converse with Bubba about math, science, etc as if he were talking to another adult.

Boo also has an extensive vocabulary, and talks well beyond the average level of a 6 year old. Sometimes he goes off on tangents that make ZERO sense...but he's a good talker.

That brings us to Princess Bean. Who...doesn't have the gift of gab at all.

She has about 20 words she uses on a regular basis, and she's two and a half years old. It got a little worrisome...so off to speech therapy we went!

Tuesday was our evaluation. As expected, she was developmentally on par for everything...except her speech.

Her speech is at the level of a 15-18 month old. Now, while I'm partly grateful for the brief reprieve of my children talking my ear off when the boys are at school and Princess Bean is the only one at home, it gets a little frustrating when she just can't (or won't) converse with me and tell me what she wants. She's good at communicating without words, but on those occasions when she can't figure out how to let me know it's really hard to cope sometimes.

The thing about speech delay is that it's not like a delay in walking where we can do exercises or get tools that can help her along. It's just something we have to wait for, and hope that monthly therapy helps to hurry it along.

The Countdown of our Life

Today is a special day here at our house. Today is the 9th anniversary of the day that Conqueror Daddy and I got married. Rather than go into a big sentimental post about that day and how much I love him, I present to you the Lightsabers and Lullabies Top Ten Countdown!

10 - Number of years since we met, at a church event in Conqueror Daddy's hometown. Such a coincidence, when you consider that he had just moved back there, and the decision to do so hadn't been an easy one.

FYI, he looked NOTHING like this when I met him - He was a PUNK!

9 - Number of years that we've been married. Through ups and downs, good times and bad. We've certainly kept the promise that we made "For better or for worse" in the past nine years.



He didn't even look like THIS!

8 - Number of houses we've lived in since we got married. The one we're in right now is my second favorite, but the town is definitely my favorite.

When the ocean is in your backyard, how can you not love it?

7 - Number of piercings Conqueror Daddy had when I met him. No, I'm not kidding. I only wish I had a picture of that, but clearly that was before we upgraded to digital cameras and my scanner is in the basement...and it's cold down there...

6 - Age of our youngest son, Boo. I've had several people tell me that he's the most beautiful boy that they've ever seen. I tend to agree.

5 - Number of attendants each of us had at our wedding. Again, no picture as I don't have many of our wedding pictures scanned. But my matron of honor was my older sister, Da and my bridesmaids were two of my best friends, my niece and my sister in law. Conqueror Daddy's best man was his best friend since kindergarten, my nephew and three of his best friends.

4 - Number of beautiful children we have. Sheer perfection, if I do say so myself.

Bubba (8), Boy (10), Princess Bean (2) and Boo (6)

3 -  Number of dress sizes I've gained since we got married. So sad.

Me, when the pounds began to pack on like crazy.

2 - Number of pets we have. Two incredibly annoying cats.

Maybe they annoy us because we do things like this to them...

1 - One absolutely awesome nerdy family that I wouldn't trade for anything. Not even for my own Death Star.

Even if it is impossible to get a picture of all of us smiling...or even looking.

A New Beginning

New Years Day seemed the perfect time to start this blog. A fresh start to a fresh new year. A place to record the memories that we make in 2013 and beyond. A place to share with anyone that might stumble upon this blog and decide to share in the fun that we have.

Allow me to introduce myself. I'm Darth Mummy, a rather unorthodox mother in many ways. I'm what some might call a "geek mom" because I love gaming, zombie apocalypse movies and shows and other things that most people my age consider too childish to involve themselves in. I like to scrapbook, craft, sew and create. I like to spend time in my kitchen.

And I like to share it all with friends, old and new.

Please, feel free to follow along with the adventures of myself and my crew. There's Conqueror Daddy, our three sons; Boy (age 10), Bubba (age 8), Boo (age 6) and our one and only little daughter, Princess Bean. Ours is a household full of laughter, squabbling, and quotes like "Okay, now pretend I'm a zombie...with a lightsaber!"

We welcome you to share in our laughter and tears, frustration and triumph - as well as our recipes, crafts and learning experiences. We love to take pictures, so there should be plenty. We don't take ourselves too seriously, so there should be something to giggle at.

We welcome you, no we encourage you to leave comments on the posts. We love to hear from readers, whether it's a simple hello, a question or even an experience, recipe or craft suggestion of your own to share.

We hope that 2013 is a year in which we make lots of new friends and revisit some old ones - all through this blog!

Welcome to the Dark Side...we have fresh baked cookies!