Charlie speaks (sort of)

A couple Fridays ago, I went to pick up Charlie from daycare, and this is what he looked like:

Fence 1, Nose and Forehead 0
…but he came out grinning!

Seems there’s a downslope at one edge of the playground, with a fence, and Charlie decided to take a trike down the slope at full-tilt-boogie. They said he put his hands out at the last minute, but it didn’t stop the faceplant (or was it a fenceplant?). The scuff scabbed over, and could be seen a long way off, before it finally started healing. Fortunately, it’s nearly gone now. I carried the incident report from the daycare around with me for a while, in case someone accused me of something they shouldn’t.

But that’s not what I wanted to talk about. Charlie’s speech therapy is finally starting to pay off. He still can’t do hard consonants, but he can say several things recognizable as words: “gah-dah” (Granddad), “gah-ma” (Grandmom), “ow-ooo” (out, as in outside), “uh!” (up), “banana” (his favorite snack food) and a couple other things on occasion. The therapist is working on getting him a Dynavox, a tablet with speech software. You tap an icon and it speaks for him. She tried him on one she was setting up for another patient, and he took to it right away. Still, the old grunt-and-point often gets him a long way toward being understood. He’ll put a whiny edge on it when he wants something, too.

I observed recently that he’s looking less like a baby and more like a little boy these days. He wants to do more things for himself, which is commendable. One recent evening, we read a few books, and he held one and turned the pages after I read the text. He’s been working on dressing himself as well, and can do all but the shirt (The Boy, advanced as he was, didn’t start dressing himself until he was 4). He is even showing a preference for which car he wants to ride in… either M.O. the B.B. (huge pickup) or the Miata (tiny roadster).

Now if I could only get him to expand his approved proteins list…