New

Billy, as you probably know, has an increasingly mild form of apraxia. When he was first diagnosed, it was "moderate to severe" and as of this last session of summer, it is "mild/moderate". It is also switched from apraxia to Childhood Apraxia of Speech, which is more a developmental thing than a life sentence kind of thing. But he's been in speech and language therapy for a whole year now and has at least two more in front of him (at which point, kindergarten will start at the public school where my girls attend...where speech and language would be free...and so he'll probably be done!).

The first semester was focused simply on imitation, which he never ever did before last November or so. Second semester focused on some speech goals, like s-blends, with language goals taking a bit of a back seat. His average length of utterance increased from 2 to 3 that semester, and this summer got up to 4, as long as it was on topics he liked (transportation, essentially). The professor we work with is a national expert in apraxia and has assured me that this is doable, that it can be overcome, and that she doesn't see anything else alarming (autism spectrum, developmental disabilities beyond speech, etc).

All this is great news. I still see the apraxic (is that a word) speech when he's trying to convey something beyond his favorite topics (transportation). He can go on and on quite fluently about Thomas the Tank Engine or his tricycle or our car. But if he wants me to open the attic door so he can go play with more transportation, I can see and hear the hesitation. "I want...open door..play trains...please." Many sentences are sing-songy, too, which is adorable at age three but we need to put an end to it soon. Everything is kind of a question?

But I'm happy with his progress, and I like taking him to SLU, where Sophia did speech therapy as well. Close by, we get a break because we're alums, etc. It's very comfortable there and he has gotten to like the students he works with, enough that this summer when he met the new student, he turned and said, "No...I want...Janey!"

Anyway. Adjectives are kind of a new thing for Billy. It's been a verb-noun world up until the past few months, when awesome, fast, slow, quiet, loud, big, small, and so forth entered his vocabulary. And now his favorite new adjective is "new".

"We going in our new car?" he'll ask. I'll remind him that our car isn't new. He is undeterred.

"I ride mine new bike?" And I just say yes. It also is not new but oh well.

"I play mine new trains?" I have to admit like like the German-influence on the possessive. Mein neuer Zug.

So it's all new. Mine new milk. Our new kitchen. The new pool.

And it's all very cute until we left the mechanic this morning and he asked me, "Where mine new daddy?"

When I reminded him that his father was not new, but the same father he'd had since the beginning, he just laughed. "Oh, yeah," he conceded. And then on the way home asked again, "Mine new daddy working?"

It's getting old.