The Brute

Maximus has officially gotten the ball rolling for Speech Therapy.  Why so late, you may ask... or may not care... or whateva... ima tell you anyway.  There seems to be two very opinionated schools of thought around me regarding speech therapy.  I kinda ride the fence.  One school is probably astounded that my 27 month old (annoying, right?  2 years, 3 months) can't speak Latin.  They'da thrown him in circa 12 months when he wasn't babbling out his numbers 1 through 10.  I don't subscribe to this.  I thoroughly believe kids should eat, sleep and poop and play even more.  Playing is crazy important.  Why stress all this other crap they're going to have to do for a life time.  A lot is learned simply by being and observing the world around you.  Now, there's also the other school that's all like, "duuuude.  Just let him beeee"  [read in a hippie voice, it's more entertaining].  These people believe that even if he doesn't speak 'til age 4, so be it.

Like I said, I'm somewhere on the fence.  We put Z through speech therapy at no cost to us.  (Why wouldn't we do it??)  He went from nearly no words around 24 months to speaking fluently for all to understand and uh... never shutting up.  Before he could speak, Z would bang his head or scream to get attention, the wrong attention and we didn't want him to hurt himself.  Besides that, I was ready to get to "know" the little guy.  Have a conversation.  Ask him, "what's up?" and actually find out.  So today, at the age of three, he's talking up a storm and beginning to learn his letters.  He can count to 10 and a little beyond on his own and hold up a pretty good (interesting) conversation.

Max has always been our brute.  He looks like a Max.  And while he does have a few words under his belt, he had kinda plateau-ed and we thought it was time.  The temper tantrums he throws when he's not understood or doesn't get his way are nuts compared to Z's.  I just wanted some relief for him and for us and I felt like I had held out long enough.  My co-worker, who is old-school and completely zen when it comes to parenting (she homeschooled/homeschools too) simply said, "Why?" when I told her we started speech.  It was in just a sort of way that made me question my decision, but only for a minute.  I don't feel I'm pushing the kid... just want him to be able to communicate with and through his world. 

He would then (maybe) be able to explain THIS at lunch a few minutes ago:

or not... I don't think there could be an explanation.