bountifulplate

When I heard Dominic running down the stairs and into the family room at 6:30 a.m. this morning, my first thought was, what in the world is he going to do with the two hours before his bus arrives? Would he play with his toys? the i-Pad? rest on the couch? When I asked Dominic what today was, he told me, "riding a bus to get to Kinawa (his middle school), pizza!" Yep, every Thursday I let him get hot lunch, which always includes pizza.  If Dominic had his way, EVERY day would be pizza day :) LOL. Next up for him was breakfast. I told him I would be making homemade waffles and would let him know when they were ready. When his "order" was up, he came dancing into the kitchen to get them. He then remarked, "Grandma lives in heaven." Well, yesterday was the four year anniversary of when my mother-in-law passed away.  It was tough not to grab a tissue and dab my eyes. Next, Dominic said, "Lauren?" I told him that she wasn't here. He then said, ...

Yesterday morning, Dominic said two sentences spontaneously.  When he came downstairs for breakfast, he told me, "It's snowing!" Then, shortly before he got on the bus, he looked out the back window, saw a bunny hiding behind one of the trees in the backyard and said, "bunny in the snow!"   That might not seem like a huge deal, but to me, I was ready to have a party!  For children with speech delays (like Dominic), getting him to describe what's going on and initiating conversation is a constant challenge.  At his parent/teacher conference in March, I talked briefly to Dominic's current speech therapist. He has been blessed to have had some amazing speech therapists that have worked with him since he started school. The speech therapist filled me in on how he was doing at the conference.  She gave me some great suggestions on how to elicit more spontaneous speech, like cover the words in a story and make him ...