Happy Halloween!

Our Halloween was so sweet this year and not just from all the candy :) Last year I had a really difficult time when we went Trick or Treating at a friend's house and her 20 month old ran to the door yelling "Happy Halloween!" and Nathan (who was two weeks shy of 2 years old) couldn't even say 'mama'. What a different kid we have this year! I know it's been a while since I posted, so I'll try to remember as much as I can from the past few months.

First, Nathan graduated from First Steps. We thought he would be in the program until he aged out at 3, but after his final evaluation we were told he was no longer eligible for services. What a great feeling that was! He is still in the program at Indiana State where he receives therapy twice a week and we have been incredibly fortunate to have another wonderful student therapist. So anyway, during his last eval (in August/September) he scored at 2 years 11 months in expressive language and 4 years 11 months in receptive language! He was also tested for the developmental preschool a few weeks ago and we just received word that he is not eligible for services. I am beyond excited, but it is still difficult to believe when last year we were just praying he would be ready for mainstream kindergarten when he turned 5. What a blessing! We are still working on slowing down his speech and he still has errors and omissions, but nothing we can't fix.

On another front, we are surviving our second month of the "why" game. Every other word out of his mouth is "Why? Why, mommy? Why?" I told myself when he wasn't talking yet that if he would ever learn to speak, I would answer every question he ever had. But let me tell you, it is hard! It definitely keeps me in check though, and I don't take anything he says for granted. Even when he says the same thing 30 times in a row :)

Oh, and he has now decided that he's ready to be called Nate. The other day he says "Mom (I'm mom most of the time now too), I am big boy Nate and I will sleep in my bed by myself tonight." which of course lasted all of 30 seconds before he yelled at me to get in bed with him :) But I wasn't quite ready for the Nate thing yet. I knew it would come at some point, but I thought that time would be around 10, not 3. So for now I am still calling him Nathan and trying to hang on to my baby as long as I can.

And speaking of babies (or not so much), Logan has such a huge vocabulary, I can't keep track of his words. He can pretty much repeat anything you say and occasionally can string two words together. It's so amazing to see his speech develop and is such a relief.

So that's all I have for today. I hope everyone had a safe and happy Halloween!