Funny Jed

Jed has gotten himself into all sorts of funny situations the past couple of weeks. I am preserving them for when he has his first girlfriend and I need to bring his ego down a peg or two.

During book club a couple weeks ago, the kids were playing outside while we had our discussion. Suddenly there was a loud clap of thunder and the sky opened and began pouring down rain. Jed was totally soaked. I had just barely cleaned out his car seat and didn't want it to get wet, so Jed rode home in just his underwear. Once we got home, he climbed into the driver's seat and was having quite the time "driving" naked, but by the time I got the camera, he was climbing out of the car.


Jed is quite the champ at putting together fabulous outfits. He loves his boots and Dave's hat and wears them together quite a bit. I was trying to get him to pose for the camera, but this is as close as we got.


Last week Jed and I did a fun St. Paddy's day craft involving acrylic paint. After he was done with the craft, I gave him a little more paint and a big piece of paper for finger painting. But he just squished all the paint around the plate and rubbed it all over his hands. I'm not sure how he managed to get it in his hair and all over his face, but he did. He has a band-aid mustache because that red thing (Dave calls it his parasitic twin) on his lip popped and bled EVERYWHERE. He spent a week with a band-aid and it seems to be improving now. Thank goodness!


Saturday we worked so hard and got so many things done--Dave and Jed mowed the yard and worked in the garden and defrosted our outside freezer while I made yogurt and cookies and canned beans. In the afternoon we all crashed for a little while. Jed and Dave made such cute sleeping companions that I couldn't resist taking a picture of them.

Finally, a little video of Jed and Dave playing yesterday. I know I haven't mentioned it, but Jed has been in speech therapy for a speech delay called echolalia, which is basically where a child repeats everything he hears instead of responding normally in conversation. All children repeat a little--it's how they process information and learn to communicate--but when a child doesn't move past that repeating phase and instead repeats phrases he hears on TV, from books, and from normal conversation, that is echolalia. It can sometimes be associated with autism but not always, as in Jed's case. It has been such a frustrating thing for me personally--you cannot imagine how difficult it is to ask your child a yes or no question and have them parrot it back to you, or to say "would you like milk or water?" and have them repeat "milk or water?" instead of making a choice. Multiply this by the hundred little decisions you help your child make every day and you can understand a little of what we dealt with. Echolalic children also have a hard time discussing their emotions--they usually just throw a tantrum because they have no words to describe how they're feeling, since none have been supplied.

After a lot of praying, forcing our doctor to give us hearing tests galore and getting advice from the special ed department at the school (who couldn't help us), we found a FABULOUS speech therapist who comes twice a week and helps Jed (and me!). I love Leah with all my heart and it has been SO encouraging to watch Jed developing his own language skills. It's truly like watching a little plant grow--I knew he had it inside himself all the time, he just needed some help to get going. One of the signs of progress is that a child will use phrases he's heard from a book or movie but make the situation apply to himself instead of the character. Jed has recently begun doing this with a little scene from Winnie the Pooh and not only is it really cute, it means that he's progressing with his language.


I know Jed still has a long way to go, but he makes choices when I ask him what color shirt he wants to wear, if he wants apples or strawberries, and tells me "I want to read Baggy and Saggy Elephant pwease" when I ask him what story we should read. He will ask me "Hey mommy, what you doing?" He answers open-ended and who, what, where questions pretty accurately. He is much better at explaining what is bothering him and even works to talk to his friends when we're at the park or he's at church. A standard phrase in our house now is "use your words" and let me tell you, they are in use. I LOVE IT. In a way, I am grateful for this trial, because it has taught me to truly listen to my child. I will never get tired of hearing Jed converse with me, because those little chats have come at such a price.