Speaking of . . .

While perusing my blog posts from right before Ben was born, I found this little gem. It's funny that it was more than 2 years ago, but some things about Jack just haven't changed. It also made me glad that Ben isn't quite as verbal as Jack was at this age. I'm not sure I could handle it.

Nonetheless, Ben's speech has taken off. We had his evaluation with the speech therapist a few weeks ago and it went well, and she took my concerns seriously, but she kept emphasizing that he was ahead of the game in every area but expressive speech and I got the feeling that she wanted to say, "Calm down and don't worry." She was very nice and really professional though.

It didn't help my case that he literally started using two and three word phrases 18 hours before she came. I'm not even kidding. He repeated me when I said "Happy Halloween" and then just took off from there. She repeated almost everything she asked him to. I was proud, but a little bit embarrassed that I had just finished telling her that he won't do that at all.

Now he's pretty much saying everything he wants to and repeating anything we ask him to. He still has a lot of pronunciation issues, but even those are resolving themselves without much intervention. When he wanted a cup of water, he would always say "Wa-Gee" instead of "water." This morning he walked into our bedroom and said "Water in big cup, pease." And then he stood there unsure of what to do as Kyle and I cheered and asked him to say it again. His love of books (and attention span) is growing and there are many that he'll "read" to us. Something just seems to have clicked for him.

He's come a long way in just a few weeks.

So, while maybe I jumped the gun with speech therapy, I don't regret it. I'd rather be a little too proactive than not proactive enough, I guess. The therapist is making a return visit tomorrow to evaluate his progress, and I'm pretty sure his progress will confirm her feelings that I'm a little bit overprotective. Oh, well. There are worse things to be, I suppose.