Funny Stuff, and Speech Evaluation

Tucker has been doing so many funny things lately, I want to write them down so that I don't forget them! His new thing to do is wait in the front window for people to come in the house. If I know it's almost time for someone to come over, I'll tell him, then he waits very patiently by the window until they get there. When it's time for a visitor to leave, he practically shoves them out the door so that he can hurry over to the window to watch them leave. It is not always a good thing, the other day Gina told him "Go wait for Nana, she is coming," and he ran right to the window and stayed there, even though we knew Mom was at least 30 minutes away! Tucker also has very set gender roles, and I don't know where he got this! He is very observant of everything, and he is just recently showing us how much he pays attention. When the family gets together, whether its the Townsends, Lavignes, or whoever, he likes the women in the kitchen and the men in the living room! He will physically push the adults around or cry until they are all in their right spots. It is hilarious, but also makes me a little worried about where he got this idea! He has also liked to "match" couples for some time now. He gets very confused when a couple does not sit side by side, and he will often pull on your hand to put you next to the right person. Tucker likes many grown-up things, like wallets and keys. One of his favorite things is my purse, he won't go anywhere without it. He takes my stuff out and puts his stuff in, though, so I often end up places with a purse full of screws and potato head pieces, with no wallet! There were a few days last week where Tucker kept hiding my keys. His old hiding spot was his Mr. Strong bag, so we knew anything that we lost usually ended up there. Well last week I found my keys in his Easter basket (he still has it out because he loves it) and in his Mr. Potato head's back. My sister Meagan and her husband Chris moved into their new house yesterday, so we all went over to help. I told Tucker that we were going to see Nanny once Daddy got home. So once (my) Chris came in the door, he yelled at Chris "Nanny, go!" and didn't even want Chris to take a step inside. Tucker had so much fun "helping", by running up and down the UHaul ramp. Thank goodness one of Chris C.'s friends brought his little boy, he is 6 years old, and Tucker followed him around inside. Tucker loves big kids, so as long as Parrish stayed inside, so did Tucker. When the heavy lifting was done, Tucker made himself at home. He dug through Nanny's box and found a comfy robe and pillow, then demanded Mickey on her TV. Luckily we had a Mickey DVD (We never leave home without it:) ), so I put that in. I didn't think I would ever get him to leave! Speech Progress Tucker has so, so many words in his head, it is just often so hard to get him to say them! He says so many things for his teachers and therapists. Last week he said "umbrella" at school. Seriously, I can't even get him to say "Mommy" sometimes! His speech therapist has flash cards, and some of the words are hard, I think, but he can say so many of them. We often don't know all that he is learning at school, because they cover so many words. Tucker has lots of beach-themed clothes since he gets to play on the beach for the first time this summer-yay! So anyways, I put on his shark PJs for the first time tonight, I pointed to the shark and said "what's that?" I thought he might say "fish" or just not answer me, he looked down and said "tark," plain as day. (He is nowhere near having the "s" sound or "sh" sound, due to his lack of air control from having the trach). He has done this before, like once Chris handed him his Toddler Bible and asked "what is this?" We thought he would answer "book," but he said "Bi-buh", he is so cute! Tucker is also starting to say two-word phrases, such as "lite op" which is "light off" and "gee up" which is "get up". The other night Chris was reading a duck book to Tucker, and Chris said "where's mama duck?" Tucker pointed to it and said "na na duck." He also knows animal sounds! I just started asking him sometime last week, and he knows the horse says neigh, the duck says quack, and the monkey says ah ah. It is hilarious! So even with all of his speech progress, Tucker is way behind other 3-year-olds for obvious reasons. Tucker did not qualify for Extended School Year with the public school system, which is okay because we really want to put him at a private therapy preschool called Abilities. It is a great program for 3-5 year olds with special needs. This is a new center that Tucker has never attended, so he went in for his evaluation yesterday so that the teachers and therapists could learn about him. Filling out that paperwork is always overwhelming. When it asks "what are your concerns?" and "briefly describe your child's medical issues" I just laugh! I could write a book for questions like that. So the speech therapist got him to say quite a few things, and we talked a lot about his feeding issues. She said that with that evaluation, his speech mainly falls into the 18 month to 24 month range, and his functional abilities fall between 30 to 36 month old range. That is such a HUGE improvement from where we were last year. It puts him 1 to 2 years behind other kids, which is NEVER nice to hear, trust me! But it is still a very positive sign, and makes Chris and me very happy with our decisions to keep him in so many therapies and to continue his preschool this summer so that he can continue his progress. We spent so many years going to so many hours of therapy, and for so long it seemed like Tucker was not progressing. School has so much to do with his progress, and so does getting his trach out. We are hoping to keep medical issues to a minimum! That way he can focus on talking and learning more.