The Sound of Happiness

Olivia talks all the time these days. I know, she’s five, what’s the big deal.

Except any parent with a child with 5p- syndrome knows what the big deal is.

She talks. In full, clear sentences. All the time. She tells us what she wants for breakfast, she tells her dad, “No, no, no, no, no, that is not for you!” when he pretends to eat her Reece’s bunny.

She yells at her sister if she tries to turn off the Barbie Princess Charm School movie. She tells me that she wants to wear a red dress to parties and that her ear hurts in the middle of the night.

She asks me to remove a wet Pull-up at 2am, promising she’ll tell me when she has to pee so she doesn’t wet the bed.

I was upstairs yesterday evening putting clothes away and laying out the coming week’s worth of clothes for myself and the girls.

I could hear the commotion of life downstairs.

Mostly, it was Olivia, babbling, singing, chanting, making noise.

And I took a moment and soaked it in. My girl talks. She makes sounds that have meaning, that we can understand, that communicate her needs, her wants, her pains, her fears.

The sounds last night reminded me so much of the babbling a fifteen month old might make, except there were words coming in the middle of the jabbering.

But I’ll take the jabber too. It means her lungs are strong enough to make sounds that carry, it means she’s finding her voice.

I am so, so grateful for that. For the strength of will that Olivia possesses that has allowed her to overcome so much in her five sweet years. I’m grateful to each and every therapist she’s ever had who has encouraged her even in the face of her vicious eye-rolling and her huffing and puffing when they ask her to do things she doesn’t want to do.

Oh yes, that girl has some serious attitude and I think that very attitude is part of what’s brought out her voice so strongly. It’s also given her legs the strength, the will to stand up and carry her around, that allows her to keep up with her sister and her cousins. She races, she shrieks, she laughs, she taunts.

She’s five and she’s awesome.