Speech Improvements

Sasha's undergone quite a speech improvement in the week she's been gone. Probably coincidence, but she has had a ton of new people to talk to so that could have something to do with it too. She is loving all the attention she is getting from her devoted family and friends in Montana.
Most notably, her pronoun usage and sentence grammar has improved. For example, a week or two ago, if she had wanted to go to her beloved store, Ikea (she could seriously identify the Ikea building while we drive by and point it out from like a mile away), she would say, "go Ikea!!". But now she can say the complete sentence, clearly enunciated: "I want to go to Ikea!".

Sasha has a little group of family and friends that visit daily specifically to see and play with Sasha. They are older ladies, and they do adore her very much. Sasha was cracking them up. They would ask Sasha a question that they knew Sasha would answer "no" to. Like, "Do you want a nap?", and she would reply. "Ummmmmm, NO!". It's hard to explain exactly how she said it, but just the tone and way she replied was really funny. The "NO!" part was quite forceful, but combined with her little "ummmmmm" made it sound like she was almost considering it for a moment.

I love the way she still says some things. Like if I tell her "I miss you", she asks me, "You miss Sasha??? You miss me?".
Just small things, but they're very Sasha-like things that she says.

Oh and in a sort of related side note, I found this article on toddler speech, specifically "echolalia" or toddler repetition, very fascinating.

Luggage lost

This seems to happen a lot to us. Of course, when my husband arrived at his destination airport, his luggage was not there.
Fortunately, I married that man for his brains :)
He cleverly packed the luggage to account for the likelihood that the main luggage would get lost. He packed a spare set of clothes for Sasha and himself in the carry-on baggage. And some extra pull-ups for Sasha. And anything really necessary to survive a day or two without the main luggage.
He also packed the toilet seat adapter in carry-on. This was wise, as Sasha's been day-time potty trained since before she turned two.

Before they left, my husband and I talked about Sasha and how she would fare with going potty during and after her trip. Every time I've ever tried to take her to a public restroom, she became anxious and scared. She's always refused to use a public toilet. Factor in the automatic flushing toilets they usually have at airports, and I feared it would be the equivalent of a toddler horror flick. (Hah, automatic flushers as a toddler horror film. I crack myself up.).
But I was wrong. At the airport, Sasha announced to my husband that she had to go potty. He took her and they did have those horrible auto-flushers. He put the adapter potty seat on the public toilet. She hopped on and went potty as usual. Everytime someone flushed, she asked my husband "What's that noise?". ("What's That Noise" has been a fun game of hers lately, especially when she's submerged in the bathtub). She also asked "What's that noise?" everytime someone washed their hands or used the hand dryers.
But she did fine.

They did find the lost luggage, but they refused to ship it to him. They claim they had it rotating on the carousel all along and that my husband merely failed to recognize his own luggage. Um, no. Totally untrue but whatever. So he has to go back to the airport tomorrow (which is not a short drive) to pick it up.
At least my husband and daughter made it to their destination safe and sound. And Sasha can go potty as usual :)