Huge progress in communication: Ella is now saying “I want…”. Sometimes she adds a “to” at the end and we almost know what she means. But it is really like having a conversation with her. Last night I listened to the girls’ room once they were in bed with the door closed. Ella kept saying “I want”, “I want” and Netta was responding to her “You can’t have it!” “Somebody else took it…” and such. It was pretty funny. Beth has been working extremely hard on communication & Ella is her test-case for school and the subject of Beth’s research/studies right now. Beth has set up a myriad of different exercises and keeps testing Ella for improvements. This is great. Apparently they are working hard at school too with pointing, and asking, eye contact, choices and all these things. It is exciting although I’m always worried about losing something else when Ella makes a breakthrough in any one direction. For example, since I’ve been hearing the “I want”, I haven’t been hearing any “All done”s. Other than that we are getting ready for our upcoming trip to Chicago for Ella surgery. Hopefully, it will happen this time although I am not looking forward to the pain and suffering that Ella will have to go through. With luck, it will be shortlived like the last time which wasn’t bad at all. However, Ella is more aware of things now and that worries me.