Tonight I read this book to Cian before bed as he had picked it out at the library:
http://www.veryawesomeworld.com/awesomebook/
It's a really good book - full of things I agree with about dreaming big. It's particularly interesting because Cian has been having some bad dreams about monsters. We talked about how mommies scare monsters away in your dreams so you tell the monsters that your mommy says "Go Away!" and he seemed reasonably satisfied with that answer. Although just before he fell asleep he did confess that I hadn't come to get him in his dream and he started to cry <hearbreak> but I did tell him I would always come and he seemed reassured with that. These are big conversations with Cian as he is not a big talker as some of you know.
Another weird thing tonight was that when we turned to the page with the cemetery of dreams on it - he asked where all the people were. There are loads of pages in this book without people on them but for some reason he thought that page should have people and when I explained that this picture was of a cemetery and that is where people go when they die and their heart stops beating (doctor answer) - he asked specifically WHERE the people were and pointed to the headstones. I said that we bury people under the ground when they die cause they go to Heaven to be with God - just like mommy's grandma. There were lots of "Why?" questions after that and then the question "Why don't you dig her out of there?" which I sort of glossed over. I was not expecting these deep questions from a beautiful whimsical book and I wasn't expecting these questions from Cian who CONSTANTLY surprises me. It is amazing that even as his mother I fall into the trap of thinking his speech delay means he's not thinking. I don't actively feel that way but I have caught myself on several occasions being surprised by his abilities and concepts he understands. This makes sense because he has to work OVERTIME trying to communicate his points that he can't say.
Tonight we're trying to think of good dreams so he decided to be "an octopus who could swim fast and was camoflauged"- case in point.
You mean this octopus? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmDTtkZlMwM
ReplyDeleteAnd all kids, speech delayed or not, understand a hell of a lot more than they can say when they are little. Being surprised at what your kids understand because they have only just learned to say it is, I think, an extremely normal part of being a mom or dad.
He LOVES that video :). I agree - kids surprise me everyday at work and Emily surprises me too. Cian just is a special case for me because there is such a discrepency between what I think he can do / understand and what he can actually do/ understand. That is absolutely due to my extreme bias to verbal communication (ie it's not his problem it's my problem). But I agree we as "adults" are surprised by the abilities and insights of young people all the time - that's part of the reason I love doing peds gyne.
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