Every Day Miracles

Tomorrow the Prince will accomplish a special milestone: he is "graduating" from speech therapy, after four years. His ST finished the most recent evaluation, and the Prince at last scored across the board at his age level or above. I am so proud of him, and I was thinking this is one of those moments, kind of like "Welcome to Holland" that only parents of children with developmental delays can fully appreciate. Four years ago I wondered if he would ever be capable of speech, and now he is.

To me, this moment is what I call an "every day miracle"-- like a gorgeous sunrise, or the sweet smell of cookies baking, or a rainbow. Something that might seem small, but that I won't take for granted. I remember when the Prince barely made any sounds, but his ST was able to coax the "b" sound from him with bubbles, then a few months later, "b" became the word "bubbles" and labeling came along. Then "bubbles" became "more bubbles," then "I want more bubbles," and the Prince started to collect the keys of language that opened up a new world for him, and me. I will miss our ST. He has become a good friend and mentor. We will still continue occupational therapy and we are adding a social skills group to replace the one to one speech therapy. But this is a milestone nonetheless. I get emotional thinking about it an how much we have all achieved.

(Photo courtesy of www.freefoto.com)