31 for 21: Day 27--V is for very close to the finish and voice

I keep thinking that I am not going to make this challenge, that I am just going to skip one day.  Then I realize that I want to stay committed to seeing it through until the end.  The end is in site though and I can see me doing the victory dance.

Have you ever gotten tired of talking, of using your voice for long periods of time?  I know sometimes I can talk so much in a certain period of time that the sound of my voice can make me ill.  I love using my voice to talk about Ds though and I never tire of talking with others about my daughter and her diagnosis.  I have come to realize that I am passionate about Down syndrome and everything it stands for. 

Katie is verbal, but not the talking in sentences kind of verbal.  She will say words like mama, dada, dog, eat, book, bath, and a few others.  She works with speech therapy once a week at this point.  She loves to look at picture books and study the pictures.  We know that picture therapy is a very good way for her to communicate with us.  The books that she loves would be considered infant books.  They have a picture on the page and one word.  She will let us read other books to her with a story, but they do not hold her interest like the picture books do.  Her voice is beautiful when she does speak to us.  I do wonder how her speech will be as she gets older.  Will people be able to understand her?  Will she be able to voice her thoughts in a timely manner?  Right now Katie will sometimes say bye to someone but it might be after they have walked out the door, not when they are in the processing of going out the door.  We will enourage her to say bye, but her process is delayed in actually getting that thought out.  We know that her voice also comes through in her hands.  Signing has played a big part of our lives in this last year and I continue to be encouraged to learn and use it as a means of communicating with Katie.  Her little hands are full of life.  It doesn't help her occupational therapist any at this point, since we are trying to work on fine motor skills.  Katie wants to use her hands for everything but her fine motor skills.  I am Katie's voice right now and for however long she needs me to be.