Good night, T!

My son, who's 3, has been very slow to talk. Very, very slow. We've taken him in for several evaluations, and they haven't found any reason for it. And while he has made huge strides in the last year, he's still pretty far behind most kids his age. This becomes a problem in social situations. T is tall for his age and very physically skilled, so other kids often think he's several years older than he really is. Then, when he tries to talk, they all look at him like there's something really wrong with him. As his Mom, I want to protect him from being hurt or ridiculed. But I also know that he's got to find his own way and that if I'm too protective of him now, it's going to do him more harm than good in the long run. (cue sad, dramatic, emotional music) sniff.

So, I have enrolled him in a preschool program of a private child care provider on base. He is doing so well. The other boy that's in the program is behind verbally as well, so it's nice that they are on the same verbal level. Now, here's the part I don't like - while T can be an absolute Tasmanian devil with the temper tantrums and activity level, overall he's a good kid. Since starting preschool with this other boy - let's call him Jay - T has learned how to tackle, spit, fake cry (like we need any more crying around here *cough* S *cough*) fake cough/gag and a few other things that are generally annoying. In the back of my mind, I see Jay's mom blogging about T saying, he's taught Jay how to...... So, all in all the positive outweighs the negative, and isn't that the point?

When I put T to bed, I sing to him and we (usually meaning I) talk to him about what we did during the day and what's going on tomorrow. But for the past couple weeks, when I put him to bed, he's been trying to sing along with me and he's been telling me what songs to sing. This is a huge leap and I find myself tearing up (and not being able to blame it on pregnancy hormones, drat it) and just so happy that he's making noticible progress. So, tonight, when I was putting him to bed, he held up his little hand and said - "No Mom! T's turn!!" and HE sang his version of twinkle twinkle little star. Now, THAT'S progress to me!