I was lucky enough to receive some wonderful Hambly products for being
on AMM DT. This is a two layered LO.
The journaling is on the bottom and says:
To the naked eye, this looks like a toy. A little dinosaur.
But, to me, it’s so much more than that.
When the doctor first told us that he was concerned about how little you
spoke, I didn’t really feel as worried as he seemed to. Six months
later, when you were still not putting two words together, we agreed to
get you evaluated, just in case.
There were many things the evaluator said but one of them stuck with me
much more than others. She asked me if you had any imaginative play. Did
you use any objects and have them interact with each other. Did you feed
a baby doll? Did you make the farm animals talk to each other?
We had to admit, you didn’t.
Sometimes, you’d make your dinosaurs roar. But that was the extent of
your imaginative play. That’s when I officially started getting worried.
Maybe there really was something wrong with you. Maybe it wasn’t all
going to be okay.
That evaluation brought on another and the next thing we knew, you were
in speech therapy. The word explosion took a while to come and the
articulation still isn’t there, but a few weeks after therapy started, I
was sitting on the couch and saw you feeding your dinosaur. You gave it
a spoon of food. You named them the Mommy dinosaur and the Baby
dinosaur. Next thing I know, your toys were interacting with each other.
Not only did you have imaginative play, your whole world became
imaginative play.
That’s the moment I knew we were going to be okay. I knew that your
speech may take a while longer and maybe you’d need more therapy for the
articulation, but there really was nothing wrong with you. You are just
taking longer to express yourself than other little boys your age seem
to. And that’s perfectly fine, my little one.
Your plastic dinosaurs are spread all over our house. To visitors, they
are colorful toys. To me, they are reminders that everything will be all
right.
Memories like these, stories that touch your soul make such beautiful pages. I enjoy your art and words so much, thank you for sharing.
Oh, this is so beautiful and just about brings a tear to my eye.
My son was, also, evaluated and had significant delay (a year +). One year later, he graduated from speach therapy and it was such a great day! He had a terrific therapist (one that continues to be a friend even after the therapy). Now, he talks/plays non-stop — it’s so cool!
I love your story/page about your child’s growth through something that seems so everyday, but is so much more. Thanks so much for sharing this bit of your lives with us and for touching me so deeply.
I don’t know if your son is autistic, but if he is (or even isn’t, for that matter), I’m pretty sure he’ll do just fine. I myself am autistic, with Asperger’s Syndrome. I love your photography, and I am into photography myself, although I have not done it professionally. I could, though. I guess you could say my passion is landscape and nature photography, though I have done good portraits. Since we live in the desert in SoCal, I have had the opportunity to photograph dust devils, cacti, and various other things (even bees). If you would like, I could e-mail you some of the photographs I’ve taken with my Olympus SP-820UZ iHS camera.