Our Little Miracle

Life has been beyond busy and I've not had two minutes to myself in so long I forget what such a thing would be like. But I had to snatch a few minutes tonight to share my excitement.

Baby Boy came over Saturday evening to play and the most phenomenal thing happened. We had a conversation.

Now that may not seem like any big deal to most people. After all, he's two and a half years old. What's the big deal about having a conversation?

The big deal is that I've never actually had a conversation with Baby Boy before. He'll say things, sure, but mostly it's just pointing at things and exclaiming their names over and over. He usually ignores any questions directed his way, or if he answers, we have no idea what he said.

But Saturday, we had a conversation. About bubbles. He requested a bottle of bubbles, took them outside, and was playing with them, but then made the mistake of setting them on the step while running off to play with something else. In the meantime, Little Girl took over the bubbles.

I didn't even realize what had happened until it was over. Baby Boy informed me that Little Girl had his bubbles, I told him I would get him another bottle and asked him what color he wanted, and he said green. I went in to get the bubbles, and he changed his mind and said he wanted pink. I returned with the pink bubbles, and that's when it hit me -- he just conversed with me.

He talked a lot, all afternoon, in full sentences even. Not lengthy sentences, but consistently 3-4 word sentences. And I could understand him. That was the most amazing part. He's been saying longer things lately but we all, his parents included, just look at each other blankly because without context, we have no clue what he's telling us.

But Saturday was different. After a couple of hours of listening to this, I could resist no longer. I yanked out the language test I use for toddlers and tested him. Chronologically, he is 32 months of age. His receptive language tested out at 34 months, which was no surprise as he's never had a problem receptively. But his expressive language? 31 months! How we rejoiced!! I drew big circles around it and gave it to Baby Boy and told him to take it home and show his mommy -- his first A paper! :)

I have no idea how this happened. It really came out of the blue. I was thinking about the Easter video I took of him, where he says what we thought was a lot then, but came to about three utterances that were apparently unintelligible to everyone who watched the video until they heard me repeating back to him what he said. "Open present." "Ope this up." "Skittles." That was the full extent of several minutes of video while we prompted him to say numerous things, just a couple of weeks ago.

And now the child is CAUGHT UP.

Miracles do still happen.