And a special bonus video:

Maybe one of these days I’ll get around to finishing up my Thanksgiving and Christmas posts. *sighs*

When I got up to give him his hug before bed, I snuck the other two muffins into my pocket and told him that Mister Bear also said “thank you” for the muffins.  He once again looked dubious, but rolled over to go to sleep.  A couple of minutes later, though, his curiosity got the better of him, and he climbed down, claiming “need to go pee!”, but made a point of picking up the gnome on his way.  He then proceeded to take the gnome into the bathroom, turn it over, look very carefully in the bottom, and then set the gnome on his training potty while he went pee so the gnome could go pee too.

Then he carried the gnome back in to his room, climbed into bed, tucked the gnome in next to him, and went to sleep.  So sweet.

(Of course, I’m sure this little episode will come back to haunt me later, but still … so sweet.)

In other notes, if anybody wants to buy these cute kids (or their cute parents) some Christmas gifts, I’ve posted some ideas here.

He managed to sleep in it last night without falling out (we did put a higher rail on the long side), and spent a fair chunk of yesterday putting his stuffed animals down the slide (along with other, noisier things) – I think it’s a winner.

So last night, Ian asked Justin for a sticker, so Justin gave him some address labels from the local animal shelter. (I gave them $35 three years ago, and they’ve been sending me address labels ever since, in the hopes of getting another $35, and they’ve probably spent my original $35 spamming me to get more money.) The labels have cats and dogs on them, so Ian was happy.

Today, I was trying to rock Leah to sleep, and Ian was once again bugging the everlivincrap out of me. I finally told him that if he didn’t calm down and let me get her to sleep, I’d put a gate up in the doorway and lock him out of her room. He finally disappeared, and was so quiet I knew he was doing something he shouldn’t be. I finally got Leah out, and went to find Ian… he’d climbed up and found more address labels. Of course, next to the labels, there were some very temping pretty stickers with berries on them, so Ian put several of those with some address labels on his shirt…

What’s the going rate for mailing 35 pound odd-shaped packages?

Anyway, I took Ian to speech therapy, even though I didn’t think he needed it.  Ian and I spend so much time together that I always know what he wants, even if he can’t talk.  To me, that’s fine, because if I hold out for him to say a word, it leads to a tantrum, and I just really don’t want to deal with that.  The first thing the therapist did was show Ian really neat toys, and then force him to say a sound or use a sign to get the toy.  Leading to… tantrums.  Yeah.  Ian hated therapy.  I hated watching him go through it.  He wouldn’t cooperate, he’d grab for the toys, the therapist and I would tell him no, and it was just sad.  I didn’t care if he couldn’t talk, I knew he’d do it eventually if there was nothing physically or mentally wrong with him.  But then the therapist would ask what Ian calls me, and I’d have to admit that my toddler couldn’t say “mama,” and I’d get sad about that and consent to more therapy.

Ian didn’t make progress in therapy for the first few months.  He learned a few signs, mainly “want more” and “cookies,” (yeah, the SPEECH therapist started off by teaching him sign language), but Ian wouldn’t make sounds–except “kaboom.”    Of all the words he could have picked up in therapy, why kaboom?  I’ll never know.

Speaking of cookies… part of her process was to offer Ian either cookies or juice, and get him to say/sign for one or the other.  Ian always chose cookies, but then couldn’t talk while chewing.  Then he’d get thirsty, but couldn’t/wouldn’t ask for juice, and she wouldn’t just let him have it.  That drove me crazy, because I knew the poor kid really NEEDED a drink and couldn’t get one, and I was too uncomfortable to speak up for him.  I thought maybe it was just my reaction to therapy, but Justin and his mom both went to sessions and agreed that it wasn’t working for Ian.

By his second birthday, he knew maybe 5 signs and 5 words.  Then Leah was born, and I couldn’t give Ian my full attention, and I couldn’t follow him to see what he was pointing at.  Then Justin’s mom was here for a week, and she was very interested in Ian’s therapy.  She came with us to a session, and worked with him the rest of the week, trying to get sounds out of him.  The next two week’s after her visit, we didn’t have therapy.  Guess what?  Ian started talking.  Non-stop, like a parrot.  He’d repeat everything, and he started retaining sounds and words.  It was amazing.

After his two-week break, we went back to therapy the first week of June.  The therapist said that our last session would be in July, but she’d try to get him into another program.  I said, No Thanks.  The therapist was offended, worried about Ian’s well-being, wasn’t sure I was doing the right thing, pointed out that he still wasn’t saying “mommy”… then she heard him talk.  And she backed off.  She actually had the nerve to say, “Wow, you must have really been working with him at home this month!”  No, I’ve been working with him at home since therapy started in January.  He just started talking on his own, when he wanted, just like I knew he would.

Two weeks ago, Justin taught Ian to say “Mom-mom.”    My dad has been trying to get Ian to say Mama for a year now, and was quite shocked to hear it on Friday.  Dad said that I shouldn’t wish for Ian to talk, because once he starts he’ll never stop    He was right, Ian drives me nuts repeating words, and the boy has no volume control.

The whole point of this is… I’m writing down all of the words Ian can say now, so the therapist can have a record of his progress.  Not all of these words are comprehensible to anyone but me, but he has 38 words and 21 signs in his vocabulary.  Wait!  40 words, I forgot yes and no.  And lordy does Ian know how to say no.  I’m not including words that Ian has just repeated once or twice, I’m only counting words he uses spontaneously on his own.  41, forgot purple.  42, forgot butt.  Yeah, don’t teach your child to say “butt,” you’ll regret it.

In combination, he can convey complete thoughts.  Example:  Our neighbor has two red trucks, and parks one on the street and one in the driveway.  We walked by the other day, and there was a truck on the street, but not in the driveway.  Ian pointed to the red truck on the street, made the sign for “one,” said “red,” pointed to the empty driveway, made the sign for “where,” and said “red” again.  And I totally understood that he was asking where the second truck was.

One day last week, Justin went to work before Ian woke up.  Ian made the sign for “where” and said “dad-dad.”  I said, He went to work already.  Ian said “go up?”  I was really confused and asked what he meant.  Ian repeated “Go UP?” and pointed to the attic door.  OH!  When Justin works from home, he goes upstairs.  I said, No he went DOWN the hill and got in a bus.  Then Ian repeated “dad-dad go go bye bye” for an hour.  Woops, bye isn’t on the list.

I know, no one else is impressed by this, but when you’ve been waiting a year for a kid to reach a milestone, it’s big.

Signs Ian uses:  (21)

where
done
hot
cookie
milk
juice
water
want
more
help
sleepy
hear
one
wash/bath
brush teeth
bird
see/boo!
hungry
thirsty
binky
around

Words Ian uses:  (43)

uh-oh
butt
yes
no
open
close
cold
bug
park
out
off
boo
yum
boom/kaboom
bird
snack
blue
yellow
red
black
brown
bath
car
cat
green
laptop
diaper
up
down
dump
bubble
pop
go
mama
dada
Leah
Tom
Eli
Pooh
in
more
glue
purple

I know I should have done the list in a spreadsheet so I could count easier and alphabetize, but I did it in Word.  Oh well, Justin can redo it later, he actually likes doing that.

Yeah, you’ll notice that “laptop” is on the list.  Only Justin’s son could be mute for 2 years, then come up with laptop as one of his first 50 words.  It sounds the same as “diaper,” so I need context.

Edited to add: Obituary at  The Examiner