Talking Zack

AJ is the superstar of speech advancement, lately.  My Zachary is a man of few words.

But the words he does say are meaningful, from the heart, and even show the little comedian blossoming in him.

Yesterday he came upstairs from the basement where he was having ABA therapy, and he outran his therapist by about a mile, shooting past the kitchen where he was supposed to be headed, darting up another flight of stairs and pounding down the hall to AJ's bedroom where he was having ABA therapy.  He slammed AJ's door shut.  Just call him Captain Subtle.

His therapist went upstairs after him, opened AJ's door, and Zack looked over at her, smiled, and said "heh-woh."

It strikes me that this might be one of those "you had to be there" instances.  Maybe you did have to be there to see the cute "you got me" smile and to hear his game show host tone of voice.  I actually wasn't there.  But I've seen the smile, and I've heard the tone of voice, so I can readily imagine how cute it was.

Yesterday Lily got into a cat fight in the backyard -- a neighbor's cat was back there and the two of them yowled and wrestled it out for a few minutes before we spotted them and I broke it up.  Lily seemed fine but she ran downstairs to hide, mostly, I think, just to nurse her wounded pride.  I let her be most of the afternoon but then decided I needed to make certain she was okay, so I ducked around the furnace and laundry area with a flashlight, calling her.  She's a cat that thinks she's a dog -- she usually comes when I call her.  So when she didn't come out and I couldn't even spot her...

anyway I digress.

Zack was back in his little orange chair learning how to "wait" 20 seconds (you can't imagine how hard it is for him to sit there and do absolutely nothing for 20 seconds), when I walked through the room.  I waved at him and he said "buh-bye, mom."  Crystal clearly.

I get so used to hearing babbley-chittery-mumblety-nonsense from these boys, and it's just a thrill to hear real, meaningful, appropriate, clear words come out of their mouths.  Words and phrases you'd hear from a typical boy.  Words that show that they are understanding what they hear, and know the right thing to say in the right situation.  Phrases that show they are getting more social and interactive with people.  All things I took for granted that kids learned, before I knew these boys.

And my AJ -- well he doesn't just watch Wiggles videos on You Tube anymore.  Today he played a Moose and Zee game on http://www.nickjr.com/ where he had to match up the lower case letter with the upper case letter.  And he could do it.  And he liked it.

Well he liked it, because after he played one round of the game, I let him go back to You Tube.  But only a few times did I have to point out to him which upper case letter went with which lower case one.  And he came back to play the game again, on his own accord.  I figure, if he's going to use the computer, might as well get him to play an interactive game with it so it's at least a little bit educational.

And now I have to go back downstairs and continue the search for Lily.  Haven't seen her in about 22 hours now.  Starting to worry about what I'll find when I do find her.