just give it some time

the speech therapist made a point of reminding me that the benchmarks used to measure "normal" language development in children were just that - benchmarks. some kids would acquire their language skills a little bit earlier. other kids would acquire those same skills a little bit later on. still, i couldn't help but feel that she was patronizing me when she said that my two-year-old was already making progress. after all, how could she say that after only three one-hour sessions? i certainly hadn't seen any improvements up to that point. i had first recognized that my kid had a problem when, as a freshly-minted two-year-old, she still had trouble being understood by the symphony of geriatric neighbours chatting her up in the elevator of our building. the pattern had become firmly established. mrs schwartz would ask my daughter for her age. my daughter would reply in her clearest voice: "tao!" slightly befuddled, mrs schwartz would then turn to me and remark, "what did she say?" the speech therapist (which sounds so much less intimidating than speech-language pathologist) once asked me if i had experienced any issues surrounding my own personal language development as a child. as a matter of fact, i replied, i was aware of at least one somewhat noteworthy milestone in terms of my own early linguistic evolution. apparently, i had failed to utter a single word until the time of my third birthday. in fact, my mother was so concerned about the state of my mental health at the time that she actually had me examined by a licensed shrink (not an inviting proposition in those days) in order to see if there were any cracks that needed to be filled. as it turns out, by the time of my fourth birthday, i had deservedly earned the nickname "motormouth." my mother would subsequently observe that she spent the first three years of my life begging me to speak up and the next twenty years of my life begging me to shut up. anyway, getting back to the trials and tribulations of my own offspring, the therapy sessions will likely continue for the foreseeable future. the good news is that two seems largely oblivious to the entire ordeal. in fact, the kid seems rather bemused by the very nature of the sessions themselves. the other day for instance, when asked to describe the colour of the ball being held by her therapist, two blissfully responded, "back." "i think she meant black," remarked ms ph.d. to which my daughter replied, "no, give it back." i couldn't help but smile.

"if things go wrong, don't go with them." - roger babson

you try living with a seven-year-old and not hearing this ditty 300 times a day: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ye3T82Y5FHs