Sunday, December 14, 2008

S.E.'s progress report

My son S.E. started preschool this fall and his teacher had this to say at the end of his progress report: "My favorite thing about S.E. is how he expresses his thoughts. Often times I sit in amazement as I listen to his stories. His eagerness to share and learn inspires me to enjoy the smaller things in life." She was often amazed that his stories would ramble on and on and he would tie different stories together with "because" and "...and then". She is very nice and will take the time to listen to all of-not cutting him off. That's like a bartender who doesn't cut an alcoholic off. Now where could S.E. possibly get his chattiness....hmmmm...

Anyone who knows S.E. knows he is the king of talk. Larry King ain't got nothin' on S.E.'s talkativenss. A little history about our oldest son. He started saying clear words by the time he was 8 months and at his one year healthy child check-up he had over 50 words that he could say clearly (I guess the 20 words is the norm). Okay so he talked a lot. He's like a CD that you keeps playing on with the repeat button pressed. His favorite run on phrase are "...and then" and "because". Now mind you he can connect one topic to the next without any other transition other than those two words. The topics may be unrelated but his use of "...and then" leads the listener to believe they are and often it just leaves people totally confused listening to him. New house rule is he is only allowed to use two "...and then" when explaining or telling me a story.

Note on parenting: Whe S.E. was six months old, I took him to a sign language class taught by students at a neighboring town's high school. In all the baby books I read, they said if your baby can communicate via sign language, the baby would be less likely to throw fits because he can communicate what he wants before talking. So to show you how little I knew about parenting, I had S.E. (a.k.a. early talker) to sign language but the child who could really benefit from sign language younger brother Koo (didn't talk until way after one year old), did not even get taught one word. Didn't have to, S.E. said enough for both.

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