Am I the only one?

There are times when I wonder if a mother of a typical developing child feels the same way I do.  I wonder if other moms notice when their child does some the seemingly smallest task.  I first began to think about this when Landon was working on sitting up.  I had no idea that there were so many steps to this task.  I just thought that one day you looked down at your precious little one and they were sitting.  That was not the case for us...it took lots of work and many weeks of physical therapy to accomplish this goal.  But let me tell you... when it happened, we cheered and clapped like no ones business.  Do moms of typical developing children even notice the first time they see this?  Do they throw a "party" and have a special dinner because of the accomplishment?  I don't know but I know what happened in this family!!

I say all of this to set up the occurrence at speech this week.  Landon has been working so hard on his speech the past 6 months.  He gets therapy at school and then we also take him to private speech at Kluge Children's Rehabilitation Center in Chartlottesville once a week for an hour.  Lately he has been working on saying "ing" verbs in a three word utterance with no prompting.  Ms. Lori, his therapist, shows him a picture and the goal is for Landon to say, for example, "The girl is running".  Many of the pictures he has seen and knows what the verb should be but needs help putting the whole sentence together so Ms. Lori helps him by using sign language.  Well, yesterday Ms. Lori showed him a picture that he had not seen before.  It was of a baby taking a bath.  Landon looked at the picture, immediately said, "Baby is..." and then there was a pause.  You could see the little wheels turning in his head as he was trying to find the right word.  He knew that the word should probably end in -ing which is why there was a pause but he couldn't come up with the right fit so he said "in bath tub".  You would have thought that he just recited the Gettysburg Address.  No, it wasn't exactly what we were trying for but it was so much more.  We clapped, cheered, gave high fives, and praised him. And then it happened.....I began to cry.  My little boy had just said, "Baby is...in bath tub"  all by himself, with no verbal or signed ques.  It was a moment that I will never for get...a moment that I wonder how many moms would have over looked?  I am so thankful that these "little" moments don't pass me by.  I am so thankful that my little boy's hard work pays off.  Honestly..... I'm just proud of him.