I had forgotten what it was like to hang with a 2 year old. And however toddler-ific Morgan was at 2, Beck is that times 10! Last Saturday, on the 1 week anniversary of receiving his stitches, Beck celebrated by doing a header down the stairs at the Hampton Beach playground. He managed to scrape his face from the bridge of his nose to his bottom lip. I considered blogging about it but I feared this would turn into the "Beck's latest boo-boo" blog. I swear, if his face is ever scrape, cut and stitches free I'm rushing his immediately to the photo studio to get Christmas pictures done! Ahhhh, life with a toddler boy!
But besides mastering how to land on his face, Beck has made some incredible progress in language and comprehension. I'm often so surprised myself how much he understands. He enjoys learning, he devours it. This morning after breakfast Beck had his plate and a banana peel. I instructed him to go throw away his banana peel and take care of his dish. He smiled and headed into the kitchen in the other room. My husband was mortified and said "he's not going to know what to do!", I assured him he would and followed him slyly, peaking around the corner and watched him as he opened the garbage, threw away his banana peel and then continued to the dishwasher to place his dish in. I was full of pride when I said "see, told ya".
I have talked to him as if he understands English from the beginning, which seems to confuse people and they always ask me, "he doesn't speak English, does he?". But he is picking things up like a sponge. I can instruct him to go wash his hands, throw away in the garbage, get your shoes, get Mommy's shoes (I love that one!), get dressed, put away your toys, and he understands, and moreover complies.
He also likes to practice words, he can say and identify eyes, ears, nose, mouth, hair. He also says "please" "banana" "apple". Not bad for a kid who's medical claimed he was "retarded"
Things have gotten better with our pets as while. The cat now intrigues him (although he's not ready to cuddle him), the dog only produces a blood-curdling scream if she sniffs him. He loves the horses! When I ask what a horsey says, he replies with a clopping sound. He gets as excited as me when he sees one. Hmmmm, perhaps we have a little equestrian in the making?
This week I will be driving Beck to Boston to meet with Dr Laurie Miller, a international adoption specialist. He'll be undergoing 2 hours of tests for development and psycho-motor skills. By the way, all other medical tests have come back fine! All his little organs are functioning perfectly, no illnesses, no parasites. I'm not even sure how he got so lucky!
Well, it's Saturday, cross your fingers we break our Saturday tradition.... no blood today, please!
2 comments:
I can totally relate to the fun of having boys. I used to get them all haircuts for pictures and one of them would do something to their face. By the time they were all bloodstain free, they would need haircuts again. The joy of having boys and you've joined the club. Congratulations! You're in for a treat.
I did the same thing with Xander... just talked to him like he'd always been speaking English. It didn't take long for him to understand extremely complicated sentences and now he's talking in fairly complicated sentences as well... and if he didn't have a little speech impediment he'd be perfectly understandable... as it is, we have to "translate" a few things from Xanderese.
Great to hear that he's coming around with the cat and dog!
I was totally unprepared for how much trouble little boys get into and I totally understand about the pics... I haven't had them both "scar-free" long enough to get prof. pics done!
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