"How's Maybelle?"

At a work event today, a bunch of people asked, "How's Maybelle?"  It's often hard for me to know how to answer those questions.  What do people want to know?  The short, "She's great!", or something more substantive?  And if more substantive, how much more?

So here is some information about Maybelle that's more substantive.  Please feel free to skip this post (because with a blog, you're not in the tough situation of having to pretend to be interested in what someone is saying, keeping your eyebrows lifted and nodding your head while your mind wanders).

• We think they've been doing "Ring Around a Rosie" at school, because she does it repetitively in front of the mirror in the living room.  Woe to you if you decide you're willing to play along, because when, after fifteen minutes, you've decided you're ready to move on to something else, there's going to be some outrage expressed.
• She's initiating more and more speaking.  Last weekend she was in the swing, and, unprompted, she said to Biffle, "I want go, Boppa!"  For her to put two words together on her own is fairly normal ("Go bike," "shut door," "thank you," "good reading"), but four may be the most she's said without us nudging her along word by word.
• She often demands songs from me, and lately she's begun--sometimes--to be able to tell me what song she wants.  This afternoon she said, "Song!"  "What song do you want?" I asked.  She did a very nonprofessional sign for "submarine," letting me know that she wanted "Yellow Submarine."  Then after that she signed "bird" for "And Your Bird Can Sing."
• She's tall!  She had a well child visit with her pediatrician yesterday.  The last time we were there, she was in the 75th percentile for kids with Down syndrome in terms of her weight and height--bigger than average for a smaller than average population.  This time her weight was still in that range, but Dr. Sperry said, "I'm not convinced we got the height right.  If she's 37 inches, she's above the 95th percentile for kids with Down syndrome.  That's a big growth spurt."  They checked again:  she is indeed 37 inches tall.  Let's all remember that she's half Piepmeier.