Rachel and Jack

This post comes from one of my best friends, Rachel Randall. She has kne adorable little boy, Jack. Rach is a great mom, I look up to her so much. Enjoy!!

My son Jack has always done things at his own speed. He was slower than most babies to crawl and walk. He was capable of being mobile long before he actually started to do it. Chance and I blame the grandmas in his life because he was constantly picked up and hauled around. He didn’t need to transport himself anywhere, so he didn’t!
Jack is very quiet compared to probably almost every 3 year old on the planet. He is cautious and thoroughly thinks things through. You can see it in his eyes and the way he uses his tongue to concentrate. It has been a struggle for me to not compare his verbal communicating abilities to other kids around his age. My mommy sense has always told me that there is nothing wrong with his slow verbal progression, but I also have a hard time trusting the intuition for fear that I might be wrong.
There is a running joke in my family that my grandma talked him into not talking. She was a woman of few words, but the ones that she said were well thought out and made an impact. A few months before she passed away I remember her holding Jack and telling him that words are too cheap now days. They always mean moreThe less you use them. I didn’t think about that advice again until he was 30 months old and barely saying 10 words.
After months of speech evaluations, hearing test and weekly speech therapy lessons, Jack’s speech therapists reaffirmed our thoughts in her last visit. “He’s just stubborn. He’ll talk when he wants to!” Her professional opinion set me a little at ease. Over the last few months he has made huge strides in his vocabulary and he loves to sound out letters of the alphabet. You still have to earn his trust before he gives you words though. I know my grandma is smiling down with pride for how well he’s taken her advice. Earlier this week as we were getting ready for bed Jack said his first, “I wuv youuu.” All we could do was stare at him with tears rolling down our cheeks. The roles were reversed and we were speechless. That moment was well worth the wait.