Sunday, March 28, 2010

big french fry


Although he was never really gone, I feel like I finally have my husband back. For the last 9 months, Nate has been working hard on his National Board Certification portfolio, an advanced teaching credential. As soon as he drops it off at the post office tomorrow after school, he will be DONE! Then he has to take a test in June to prove his proficiency in Spanish and wait until November to hear the results. It's not exactly over, but his weekends spent working on the portfolio are over, so we went out to celebrate!

We went to Chili's, because we knew it would be Lucas-friendly and pretty quick. Lucas did really well too, and even sat in his high chair the WHOLE TIME! That doesn't always happen. We ordered him a kid's meal with broccoli as his side, because we knew that he would have a couple of Nate's french fries. Sure enough, as soon as Nate's burger came out, he asked for a french fry. But he was not happy with the small french fry he was given. He wanted a "big french fry." We weren't sure we heard him right the first time, but sure enough, that's what he was saying, and he was not happy until he got a "big french fry". He's definitely 2.

I am thrilled that Lucas is age appropriate right now in both receptive and expressive language. But, I always fear that he won't maintain that level. Our ongoing challenge in the coming years will be to keep it that way. Well, tonight confirmed for me that Lucas continues to progress in his language acquisition and usage.

Lucas is quite the flirt when we're out in public. He waves to people as they arrive and says bye-bye as people leave. Older people especially enjoy his waves. As one couple was leaving the restaurant tonight, a gentleman waved back and told him that he liked his "flashing light". It was very nice of him, and at least he didn't mention contacting outer space...

On the way home from dinner, I caught a little video of what Lucas regularly sounds like when he's narrating his own play. There are a few intelligible words, but mostly jargon. He's usually more understandable than this, but he is definitely trying to tell a good story here about the sun. You should be able to understand "bye-bye & sun". I also hear him reference a snowman at the beginning. Enjoy!!!

*Don't forget to turn off the music player to the right. This video is not captioned, because I don't know how I would caption jargon..."


5 comments:

leah said...

This is kind of eerie, because Nolan did a lot of jargon that sounded EXACTLY like Lucas on that video- about a month ago. I never managed to catch it on video, but it kind of freaked me out (it lasted for about 3 months). He's not doing it as much now, so I think it was a phase. On the flip-side, we suddenly have longer sentences. I wonder if all that jargon was his way of developing longer verbal streams?

I'll have to get a of Nolan talking (the speech samples I do are single-word responses from a book, which aren't representative of the normal conversational speech he gives).

Katie Gray Gluibizzi said...

Hi,

This made my whole weekend--jibberish or no jibberish. I definitely heard sun and he is definitely the cutest kid in the whole world. He is so big!!! I can't wait to see you guys...mid April maybe? Will you be around?

Love,
Katie

Ps I love the new photo on the header of the blog!!

Amy said...

What a fantastic post! Lucas is really ahead of the game so do not lose faith that he will lose his gains because I'm sure this is indicative of how well he will do in the future. To Lucas he believes he is really saying complete sentences in his mind and over time the words will become much clearer. What is so exciting is that this is a perfect example of the speech patterns of a normal hearing child acquiring and using language for his age. If he was a hearing child he would most likely being talking just as he is now....which is the ultimate goal for us! Go Lucas go!!!!

tammy said...

OH MY GOODNESS that is the cutest thing EVER! I love it! I love how his eyes get so wide and he's so into his song singing right along and loud! Such a doll and he's getting so big! Miss you guys.

Jenny- Sienna's mom said...

Love the jargon...Sienna often tells stories like this, you can see the excitement in their eyes and here it in their voice. I need to get my videocamera out more often. Great video!