Summer Begins

I never thought I would be one of those parents saying, "holy crap, it's SUMMER!!!" Yet here I am, and that's exactly the sentiment. What am I going to do with this child all summer?

I mean, I can do lots of the regular stuff- days at the pool (though how I am going to manage a 2-year-old and a 4-year-old at a public pool is beyond me), mornings at the playground, rainy days with the playdough. Then we'll have our other stuff- Tuesday and Thursday afternoons at speech therapy, Thursday morning at Wee Time. But I feel like other familiaes have the luxury of allowing their kids to languish during the steamy summer days; we can't do that. Joey is too desperately behind in language skills to let any precious bit of them go.

Sometimes I forget how far behind Joey really is, because I am busy rejoicing in what he is doing. The other night I was tucking him in bed and asked 'What song do you want? Do you want 'Wheels on the Bus'?" and was thrilled to hear the reply: "No. How about 'Michael Row the Boat Ashore'?" That's no script. That's not echo. That was a real response!!! And then I see other families in stores and playgrounds, having real conversations with their kids, and finding out the kid is only 3 years old... that's when I remember how much work we have to do, and how much work the poor child is doing just to try to get above the waterline.

So I am working on activities that encourage him to talk. I am hoping to get him interested in stories and creating stories, maybe even making small books. Somewhere I have some books with very simple narratives, I might pull them out for models. Get him thinking about story. He needs to be able to relate to what happened and what he has done during the day, and be able to talk about it. Dealing with conversations, not so sure what to do for that.

Ah, summer. At least he'll get to sleep in.