Laine’s first word was……”iPad”.  Before mastering the word, Laine was well on her way to mastering the motions, which came so naturally to her.  She was even caught trying to magnify a picture on a book by doing the “expand” motion with her thumb and forefinger.  As the years went on, Laine became expert in games, talking to the iPad incessantly, and sometimes hitting it when she was mad at it.  Beyond games, she read (with Anna or me or on her own) many interactive books.  For a period Laine was obsessed with a My Little Pony game, where she was expanding her world by earning gems, then buying items with these gems.  There was a particular item she was saving up for, but she was heard freaking out in her room one night.  We rushed in to see what was the matter.  It turned out that she had been manipulated (yeah right) into spending all her gems at once on an item she did not need or want.  The impulse buy was devastating for poor Laine.  She said “how can I be so dumb”.

Speaking of words….  Somewhat naively and reactively, we had Laine take speech therapy, as we were a bit worried that she was not as verbal as Mathew by 12-18 months old.  She was a very stubborn baby in general, and specifically she did not want to have speech therapy.  She chose not to like her speech therapist, an otherwise perfectly nice and committed woman.  She just wouldn’t speak during therapy.  Flat out refused.  After every session, the speech therapist would write us a note, describing what was done and that Laine did not speak…again.  One day the speech therapist said that perhaps she the therapist was speaking too much, and that Laine may be waiting.  So she tried an experiment where she would not speak at all (nothing), forcing Laine to fill the uncomfortable silence.  The note at the end of that experimental session came back:  “your daughter and I sat and stared at each other for 45 minutes.  Finally, towards the end of the session, Laine lost her balance and fell over, and said one word:  “owie”  That was it for the session”