Drawings

OK, as I told you in the previous post, Dylan loves to draw. He can do it for quite a while (for 2 year old time that is). I have seen him do it as long as 20 min. But, it is very unusual for a 2 year old to be able to draw like this. Maybe I am wrong...but my educational background tells me that most kids don't start doing these kinds of drawings until at least 4 years old. I know most of it is coming from Blue's Clues. He LOVES blue's clues. For his birthday, his Grandma sent him a gift certificate and we bought him a travel magna doodle. That is when all the drawing started. I noticed one day a few months ago that he would grab his Magna Doodle and draw when Steve was writing his "clues".

Well, now, he is actually drawing recognizable things. He is also remembering things he has seen on the clues. For instance, one day Steve and Blue's 3 clues were cookie, ice cream, and cookie. They were making a dessert. After the show was over...Dylan drew 2 cookies and ice cream. It looked just like the one on TV. Blew my mind! He also has one of the shows where they draw, sun, sand (and can't remember the other thing). I was watching the show and finally figured out he was drawing sand! It looks just like the sand on TV. Most of his sun's look better than this one (he draws them all the time.)

He is starting to pay attention to detail. You ask him to draw a picture of someone and he will look at them, draw, look at them again, draw. He is really trying to draw them. He is getting to the point where he can look at something and copy it, as seen in this picture. I drew a turtle and he copied my picture. I need to post the picture he drew in church last Sunday. It is a cow...he told me later (at least that is what I think he said). It looks like one. Needless to say....I wasn't paying much attention to the sermon at that point because his cow was pretty incredible. Even my friends in front and behind me thought so! (Yeah....I disturbed our whole side of the auditorium!)

Then the real shocker came last week. He was sitting playing with his magna doodle and I heard him spell...M-O-O-N. Those letters are pretty clear, you can understand them. I looked down at this desk and was amazed. He wrote the word Moon!!!! He erased it so fast, I had to convince him to do it again. He wasn't really into it...but I got him to do it. The N looks pretty bad on this picture...but he was kind of irritated and not sure why I wanted to see it so bad, he had already shown it to me once....."gee Mom, what is the big deal". He will write it from time to time...the N most of the time looks like a M, but he spells it correctly when he says it. You will see a little scribble above the word...he is drawing the moon, because of course...that is what Steve does in Blue's Clues.

So right now, he can spell "moon" and he can spell his name "Dylan" forward and backward. He draws faces and people all the time. I need to post some of the "portraits" he has drawn...they are quite comical. Of course, I think he is some kind of genius..but I am probably a bit biased! We encourage the drawings and try to decipher what they are. Some are still just scribbles. But he draws a lot of circles, and squares, and many...many faces. Occasionlly you will see a drawing that just blows your mind. (like the cow and this bug?)

He is still not saying many recognizable words. There are quite a few you can recognize. No 2 word phrases unless coaxed. We are going to speech. He is making progress...but we are going to have to do a lot of work. The therapist is leaning towards some form of Apraxia? (not sure I spelled that right). I have refrained from looking it up on the internet because I know there are severe cases and I am not ready to read that. We are mainly working on a way to communicate to try and relieve frustration. It seems to be working. These are little pictures of things (like pretzels, yogurt, etc). He is supposed to bring you a picture of what he wants, or wants to do. We have them in a little book with velcro. He does a pretty good job. He actually is saying the words (again..some are clear, some are not). When he brings it to you, I am supposed to say "I want a ....." and then give it to him. We do use some signs...but are working more on the pictures.

This week he worked hard on saying vowels and attaching a consonant to those vowels (like "ee pah") or ("o pah") He is doing well in his theraphy and will cooperate for Ms Karen...which is pretty good. I know that school has helped a lot. He now will not cry when he is dropped off at school (yeah, that only took about 3-4 mos) Of course he stopped the hard crying after the first 2-3 weeks, just cried at first when he was dropped off for like a few seconds. Now he just says "bye bye" "Da Da" He knows that he is coming back...so it is ok. He really is getting to be a big boy. Plus he is just so darn cute...shaggy hair and all. (yes, he needs a haircut in the worst way)

We are now preparing for Tet. We are basically going to do 1 celebration this year....life is hectic this year. But we wouldn't miss it for the world. We love celebrating Tet. So to all our friends....Chuc Mung Nam Moi!