"I Don't Know"

Today I bring you a little tale of irony. About a month or so ago, my son Owen was referred to the Early Intervention program for his behavioral feeding issues and his speech delay. Side Rant: For some ridiculous reason, even though he acts like eating food is the most awful torture that any human being should have to endure, they would not consider him a candidate until he was behind in his speech as well. (So if your child physically cannot eat, but they possess the language skills to say "I'm not eating that crud", apparently your child is SOL). Anyhow, in order to even qualify for the speech part of it, it was required that he be greater than 30% delayed. The only thing I've heard come out of his mouth since he was born 21 months ago have been screeches, grunts, and "Ooooh!", so I thought we had this evaluation in the bag.

This morning, the therapist comes by and unloads some toys on the floor and we begin to discuss Owen's strengths and weaknesses. Naturally, our discussion orbits around his communication and I explain to her his speech pattern, or lack thereof. She jots down some notes, rambles off some psychological mumbo jumbo, and pulls out a floor puzzle for Owen to use as a weapon....uh, I mean, to test his critical thinking. It was a simple puzzle - circle peg on one side, square peg on the other, triangle in the middle. All Owen had to do was put them back in the correct spot. He did an amazing job the first go-round when they were all lined up perfectly where they should be. Then the therapist took the pieces out and mixed them up and set them in front of Owen. He stared at them for a few moments, trying to figure out what he was supposed to do with them and if he really even wanted to humor us any longer. Or perhaps he was deciding which one of the pegs to throw at the cat. The therapist points to the space where the triangle should go and says to Owen, "What goes here?"

Owen paused, looked down at the sad little empty spot, and said "I don't know."

Don't get me wrong, I was THRILLED that he said something remotely understandable. But his timing, during an evaluation geared to help him with a significant SPEECH delay, was impeccable. Thankfully, the therapist registered my surprise and said "You didn't expect that, did you?" Understatement of the year. I would have predicted the earthquake in Virginia before I predicted a full, logical sentence out of my son. And, as you can probably guess, he has not said another thing since the therapist left our house this morning.

Motherhood is always full of surprises.

The Clumsy Dragon

This blog is brought to you by my daughter, Lainey, and her imaginative storytelling (as well as her creative ability to stall bedtime at all costs). I would like to title this story "Pink the Clumsy Dragon." Enjoy.

Once upon a time there was a dragon named Pink. And one day she was playing outside in her garden and she fell down and she got a boo boo on her hand and her face and her eyes and her nose and her elbow. So she went inside and said to her mom to get her some bandages for all her boo boos. And then Pink went back outside and tripped over a log. And there was a bee, and the bee flew down and started to eat the dragon because he landed on her arm and the bee said "I'm gonna eat you!" and Pink the dragon said "No don't eat me! Shoo fly!" and she chased the bee away. And bees like honey and they eat it and they buzz around like this "BUZZ BUZZ BUZZ". And then Pink was running away and she hit her arm and she said "OW OW OW!" and ran around and had to get a bandage on her arm. And they lived happily ever after...THE END.

Get this kid a publisher.