Georgia WRITES her first word.....DAD

There are certain things in the life of a child that a parent will not forget. And I can rattle off Georgia's milestones with a degree of detail and at a speed that is probably far from 'normal'. Like the first time she wore a dress (Father's Day 2003), the first word she said (DAD on Father's Day 2004), the first time she crawled (the eve of my birthday in August 2005), the first time she walked (she was aged 2 years and 50 weeks in June 2006), the first time she ran (two weeks after she walked), the first time she jumped (February 2007.....the same day Ethan first rolled).

Today is another one of those milestones. Georgia wrote her first word....DAD.

She and I were lying on the floor of her bedroom this afternoon. She wanted to do some writing. I was doing letters and she was trying to copy them. She wanted to write 'shower'. I wrote it, she tried to copy it. She drew squiggles. I told her we'd do it one letter at a time. I did an S and told her to trace over it. She did a pretty good job at it although she told me it was hard.

She asked me how to spell Mum so I wrote it down for her. And then she looked at me and I said I'll write Dad. Oh yes, I thought. Not expecting a thing. And she spelled out D-A-D. Oh good I thought being oh so proud that she got the spelling correct. And then she wrote, D-A-D. For a split second I just looked at the letters on the page and my eyes nearly fell out of my head. And then I screamed so loudly that Georgia looked terrified. And I scooped her up, told her she was brilliant, started crying my eyes out and ran for the phone to ring Luke. And I got his voicemail. So I send him the picture to his phone. And he didn't reply.

I emailed the pic to my parents ('Gandma and Gandpa'). No title, no description, just the picture. I phoned them and told them to look at the email that I'd sent them (how did the world go 'round before email?). And they read it (so I knew it wasn't just my proud Mamma eyes pretending it said DAD) and it took them about a nanosecond to recognise Georgia's handwriting and to work out I was blubbering down the phone as Georgia had ticked off yet another milestone.

Hooray for Princess Georgia. Hooray for all the therapists, aide supports, teachers and everybody else that has in the past and continue to work SO hard with our girl to ensure she keeps moving forward. Hooray! Hooray! Hooray! Hooraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!

The beauty of writing.....

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And to me, these pics of writing are about as gorgeous as writing gets....even if the bottom one is upside down (It's hard to get good help! Try as I might I can't rotate it so it is being posted upside down!!!). Because they are by Georgia - working completely unassisted. Forget calligraphy or flowing script, give me letters formed by our little girl any day.

At the moment, all she wants to do is write. She scoffs down breakfast (because her Mamma MAKES her eat it!) and then it is off to write. Isn't it amazing how much her peers inspire her? Isn't she fortunate to have the opportunity to be in mainstream school to learn from those who are doing things she desperately wants to do?

When she proudly showed me her word below, I thought it looked like DAVE. Well DAEV which I thought was close enough to DAVE. I have no idea what she was trying to write. I was in 'I'm packing your lunchbox so yes Georgia, that looks marvellous Sweetheart' land as she was spelling something out and I wasn't listening. Shame on me. And then she came to show me what she'd done and my mouth all but fell open. I was so proud of her.

And more importantly, she was so proud of herself :)