Maybe Not So Far Behind

Thomas had his 2-year-old checkup yesterday. He weighs 27 lbs 1 oz and he's 33 and 3/4 inches tall. He's just below average in weight, right at average for height, and just above on head circumference. He also got his last two shots until Kindergarten (except for annual flu shots). Yay! Shots are horrible.

At each checkup, I fill out a developmental checklist. The speech requirement for 2-year-olds is a 20 word vocabulary. I was shocked. I thought Thomas's speech was still way behind. Not so; he has a 19 word vocabulary. He says:

Dada
Sissy
ruah = truck
argh = quack (and lion, tiger, bear, dinosaur, etc.)
moo
hoo hoo (owl)
mo = more
pway = plane
uh oh
ahh = all gone
wa = water
tee = teeth
ju = juice
shoes
ca = car
ffuu = fan
cook = cookie
oh wow
pea = please

He'll also repeat just about anything you ask him too.

I'm glad he's not too far behind, but I'm also a little angry. Maybe he wouldn't have caught up without speech therapy but given that he never freaking talks at speech therapy, I think he probably would have done it on his own. We've worried about him so much over the past year. For most of that year, I've thought that we're just caught in a particular moment in time, when everyone is on the lookout for speech delays. Ten years ago (and likely 10 years from now), no one would have thought twice about Thomas's speech at 14-months-old. And while speech therapy certainly doesn't hurt him, I hate it. The only time I've ever really thought there might be something truly wrong with Thomas was during a therapy session. So, I don't take him anymore; Jeremy does. I couldn't take it anymore.

I'm rambling. I'm just frustrated because I think we could have avoided this whole stupid thing.