One year ago, almost to the day, I found myself sitting in an unfamiliar room, with unfamiliar teachers, talking about an unfamiliar thing. . . sending my almost three year old to a disabled preschool. I was working on coming to terms with that word. He was going through test after frustrating test, trying to get to the bottom of his speech disorder. At 3 years old, I was trying to convince these new teachers that yes, he only said about 7 words and well, even that may be a stretch since only I understood them. They told me he would qualify to attend this new school 4 days a week, for 3 1/2 hours each day, riding the bus to and from. He was so little and I wasn't sure I was ready to let him go for all that time. We had to set goals for him to work towards for that first year, one of which was that he would work up to a 30 word vocabulary. I remember blinking back tears and thinking that it would take some sort of miracle to achieve such a simple goal.
Fast forward to today. . . just one year later. I was back in this same room, now very familiar, with teachers that I have grown to love because of their love for my child. We went over the initial goals set and I heard the words, "caught up to the level of a normal 4 year old." In that moment I realized that there was a time, not all that long ago, when I thought I would never hear such a thing.
Such a simple thing: speech. Something taken for granted when babies turn a certain age and pass through all of those talking milestones. Something desperately missed when it doesn't happen.
Today I am so grateful. Grateful for such a miracle to occur in our little world. Grateful to hear the thoughts in my little boys mind. To hear what he wants for Christmas. To hear him pray at night. Little things that I will not take for granted any time soon.
