Our sweet Will...how do I describe him at 3? Will is full of life. Both when life is great and when life is hard. :) When he is happy, he is SO happy.
Things that make him happy: being outside, drinking milk, jumping on trampoline, swimming, bubble baths, eating cookies, cake, or chips & queso/salsa, his blankie, when Daddy gets home each day, Thomas and his trains, Lightning McQueen, bananas, puzzles, iPad, holding Tate's hand, strawberries/blueberries/blackberries, Mimi/Grandpa/MoMere/Poppy, giving hugs, Sonic grilled cheese, our babysitter & his sweet teachers, music & dancing, a big open space to run, ABCs, and VeggieTales just to name a few.
But when things don't make him happy, he will definitely let you know. :) Those can be the incredibly hard moments for all of us. It's a little heartbreaking at times because of the speech delay. I'm sure if he could verbalize many of his frustrations, things would be much less frustrating. But that is why we are hitting hard speech therapy.
He has made great progress in the last year. With speech, the progress can be slow, but progress is still progress. He is able to form 2-3 word sentences for some of his needs. He still has a lot of his own gibberish but has added many words to his vocabulary. He has been doing both private speech therapy & ECI speech for the past year. Once he turned 3, he transitioned out of ECI and into our school district's Early Childhood program. Going through this process was emotionally exhausting for all of us. But in the end, he was enrolled in a wonderful program and school. So the day after his birthday, he started going half days, 5 days a week to a class geared to kids like Will with developmental delays. It was both difficult and wonderful at the same time, but we're so thankful to have access to this program. It will help him in the areas he is struggling while also encouraging the areas he does well and enjoys.
And there are many things he does well. :) He is still the alphabet and numbers guru. He loves any kind of ABC book, and he is counting up to 25. We joke that he may read and do math before his speech is fully developed. He seriously loves letters & numbers. He's figured out all of his shapes and colors, too. We are always amazed by Will's memory. He thrives in any kind of routine and structure and quite impressively remembers if things are not in the right order. This works great in some ways, because he is really good at picking up after himself and putting things exactly back where he found them! :)
And my most favorite thing about Will is how he loves. If you ask anyone that has spent time around him, they will tell you that Will gets so excited to see people he knows and gives the absolute BEST hugs. On the really, really hard days this is the part that can make all of that melt away and selfishly sure does my heart good. I'm so thankful for this. Will loves fiercly.
We are so thankful for our full-of-life, loving Will and the joy he brings to our family! And birthdays are pretty special days in our house, so there was a lot of celebrating going on.
Since we were fortunate to have both sides of the family at his party, afterwards we all headed to one of Will's favorite places for dinner to celebrate. He loved having everyone there...and he loved that he got to eat all the chips & queso he wanted. :)
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