Taking the Scenic Route

Happy.  Proud.  Relieved. 

Today was SUCH a good day.  The last 2 days or so it is like I have a different child.  He has occasionally shown gains with his verbal skills, but nothing like the last few days.  Tonight, instead of the typical bedtime stories (Say Cheese and Harold and the Purple Crayon being his biggest repeats), he wanted his picture books ( Little Word Book, Baby Words) and not only named pretty much everything in the books, but was able to follow instructions like “point to the blue things” over and over again, with different questions.  He also knew shapes (even some less typical ones) that we have gone over, but were never sure if he understood.  He also got really excited when the pictures of the Elephants & Chimpanzees came up and became very animated.  (we saw those today). 

Tonight when we went to the playground, he ’showed’ Justin how to climb up the equipment and go down the slide.  He also did a spectacular job of waiting for Justin to go down the slide with no prompting from us.  Yesterday Justin had come over for 20-30 minutes while Ann ran to Wal-mart to pick up some groceries and Zane had played so nicely it amazed me.  He would give Justin toys, and show him how to play with different things.  It was nice seeing the trend continue.  Cody and Zane are the same age difference (Zane being the younger in that pairing) and it was always a total disaster when we got the two together.  Cody was always pushing and screaming at Zane and I sort of assumed that it was just the age.  I still think that is true to a degree, but it is nice that Zane doesn’t seem to be doing that.  He does occasionally take a toy from Justin, but it isn’t a regular thing and he returns it when prompted to.  Kindness is very important to me, so I am very glad to see that he is at least capable of it.  I don’t expect it to always be that way, after all, he is just a kid, but at least I know it isn’t a total fantasy. 

One funny thing was when we were leaving, Justin tripped on the grass.  Zane saw him fall and fell down next to him and waited until Justin got up to get up himself.  He looked at Justin like he was worried about him…very cute.  He is also seeming to grasp the concept of pumping his legs to get the swing going, and didn’t need help getting in the swing tonight (although we made sure he was sitting back far enough before pushing him).  He isn’t quite ready to swing unassisted yet, but he is starting to make the connections on how to move on a swing. 

Also tonight, he was talking and we were only half paying attention.  After a bit, we realized he was listing something, but it wasn’t readily apparent what he was saying.  All of a sudden, Zach started understanding what he was saying….he was counting in Spanish….26, 27, 28….  To confirm that is what he was doing, he played the old game with him….In Spanish, Zach said 1, Zane said 2, Zach said 3, and on through the 20s.  He knows how to count at least to 29 in Spanish.  I don’t know how to count to 29 in Spanish.  The only thing we could think of was the Dora the Explorer computer game…there is a section that counts all the stars you gather in either English or Spanish.  It was pretty cool!

It is absolutely mind blowing how fast he is gaining words.  Today I heard probably around 50 words come out of his mouth that I have NEVER heard before.  That is really a low estimate too.  It was a much higher number if you take into account that he said most of what he did without hearing it immediately before and parroting it.  Totally blew me away.  I am in shock.