A budding artist

Michael just drew this picture. Isn't it cute? Don't you just love baby drawings?

I asked him what it is a picture of. In his words, (from left to right) it is a Daddy, a cute baby, a Mike, and a giant ghost. They are scared of the ghost.


Actually, if I used Michael's actual words it would read like this: "Ma, dih a da, a coo bay-ee, a My, an a gi-an go. Day ah scee oh go."

So you can see we still have a ways to go speech wise with this boy. He is adding a second syllable onto certain words...which is very exciting. Except that when he adds the second syllable, he now leaves out the middle sound. So the word "funny" went from "fuh" to "fuh-ee". And he now knows we want something at the end when we ask him to repeat a word. So he just adds a /p/ to the end. Of anything.

Here's a recent conversation with Michael:

Michael: Ma! I wa toe. I wa toe!
Me: You want a toe?
Michael: Toe-p
Me: You want taupe?
Michael: Toe-t. I wa toe-t
Me: You want tote? Can you show me what you want?
Michael amiably takes my hand and pulls me into the kitchen. He points at the sink (?) I finally figured out he wanted toast.

Tomorrow Michael will be evaluated by the IU...Intermediate Unit. I think that's what it stands for. When he turns 3, he will no longer be eligible for services through the Early Intervention. I don't know that anything we've done in speech therapy has helped him...maybe he's just progressing with age. He's still nearly unintelligible without context clues. But he's doing better.

And he never gets frustrated...which floors me. We have conversations like the one above several times a day, and he just never gets mad when we don't understand him. He's just such a easy-going, lovable little sweet pea. And so smart. I really just want his teachers to understand him next year. I don't want people to underestimate him because he can't speak clearly. I know they'll love him...he's too lovable and charismatic. I want them to know he's smart too. ;)