The Rollercoaster that is 2

He looks so innocent...

One of the hardest parts of having a child like Teddy is how very unevenly his development has gone. He’s missing some of the more basic sorts of motor skills, due to his various times in the hospital. For example, when he was first learning to eat solids, he couldn’t really hold his core upright very well. He developed some strategies to eat that have turned into bad habits now. As a result, he has trouble with things like rotary chewing. These are the sorts of skills that he should have developed a year or more ago. Little holdups like this are hard to accept as a parent. You worry that, of course, you should have done something differently. You think that you should have seen these problems, and gotten in front of them, and helped more.

Chilling with Daddy during a gaming night

However, he has other gifts. He’s not quite 2 and a half, and he can say his entire alphabet. He knows the sounds of all the letters, and can start to give examples of words that start with specific letters. He can count to 20, and knows some of the numbers above 20, even if he has trouble with the pattern. He can sing the words to probably a dozen songs, and will happily make up his own words for them as well. He can even recite back a few of his books completely, and his favorite parts of others. All of these are the sorts of things kids a year or two older are doing. Of course, as a parent, you never really know if you did anything to help him learn this sort of stuff, or if he’s just naturally good at it. And, of course, with Teddy, we also see the other behaviors that should go with these skills, like drawing letters, not progressing as fast because they require the physical skills that he struggles with.

He tells jokes. One of his favorites is to count his socks as I put them on, and after he says, “2 socks…” while I put the second on, he looks at me and smiles and says, “Three socks.” The joke is that I’m supposed to respond that there are only two socks because he only has two feet, and this is hilarious to him. That’s actually a pretty sophisticated joke. He’s trying to insert an item into my “checklist” of socks on his feet, and then seeing the humor when he creates an expectation that violates reality. That’s beyond just mimicking us or making faces to see us laugh.

All that aside, his heart is great. He walks. He talks. He sings and runs. He’s been weaned off of one heart medicine and is only on aspirin, Xantac and a multi-vitamin now. He’s come such a long way. It’s just hard to wait for him to go the rest of the way.

Teddy, modeling my new Improving hat