OK, now what?
Last Wednesday was Mr. Charm’s first day of speech therapy.
Even before he went, he had a word explosion! He learned 8 new words the week before his first session, and started mimicking, which he had always refused to do before.
At his ‘orientation’ session, his therapist said lots of kids came with backpacks for “school” with snacks, toys, or whatever in them; she suggested that would be a great place for his “Allergy Kit” – a bag I made up with his Epi-pen, dipenhydramine, and medicine syringe.
So that morning, as I packed his Thomas the Train lunchbox with safe snacks, and stuck his Allergy Kit in the front pocket, Mr. Charm gathered a few toys and snuck them in the top of his Thomas backpack.
Can you guess what he packed?
Thomas Trains, of course! (Seriously, the child is obsessed!)
So, Big Boy Backpack in tow, we headed in to the therapist session.
While he was in session, I ran a quick errand, which was a joy to do without two kids to herd! When I returned, I got a nice progress report: he had managed to name about 38% of her ‘random objects’ box, and by the end of the session was warming up to her and using more words to make requests for play. All in all, she was pleased with his progress on his first visit and encouraged that he would do well in the therapy.
Then, this weekend came. It was like a word bomb blew up in our house! He taught himself to say “pillow”, “towel”, his brother’s name, and – my personal favorite – “All aboard!” He even started trying to mimic us saying the ABC’s, a request he has always refused! (The “all aboard” thing is too cute, by the way. When he’s running his trains around the track, he’ll say “OK, all aboard! Bye Bye!” repeatedly. Stinking adorable!)
The whole family is saying “Wow, speech therapy is really doing him some good!”, to which I have to say “After one session?” No, I think he was poised to hit his verbal growth spurt at this point in time already…but I think the speech therapy will capitalize on his new interest and really give him a great boost in his verbal skills.
The Geek said that if we had waited until now to schedule the evaluation, he would question whether it was necessary – THAT is how great Mr. Charm’s verbal abilities have grown in the last two weeks!
Still, I’m excited by the therapy for him; he really had fun playing last week, and it’s good for him to interact with other people. Not to mention – I can run at least one quick errand each time with JUST Mr. Happy!
Mama doesn’t ever get breaks, you know. This is a good thing.
So I’m looking forward to our session today, so I can show off HIS new words to his therapist.
And I know he’s looking forward to it, too. Miss C, his therapist, promised to hold his next session in…The Train Room.
Did your kids have a sudden word explosion? Or did their verbal abilities develop slowly but steadily?
