Speech therapy??

Before our Omaha trip at Christmas time, Nathan had a nasty cough so I took the boys to the pediatrician to make sure Nathan was good enough to go. He was. But while we were there, Dr. K (our nickname for our pediatrician) asked how Nathan was doing in the the talking department. At the 18-month appointment, he was a little behind, and she mentioned the possibility of speech therapy.

So during this visit, Dr. K asked how many words Nathan was saying. "Umm ... define words", I say because he does have some words, but we are the only ones that can understand them. And most of them sound like "daa", and "pau". Maybe I'm not giving him enough credit though.

Now I'm not crazy about the speech therapy idea, because he is showing improvement (or is it that we are working with him a lot more to improve his speech before his 2-year appointment). But the main reason I'm not concerned about his speech is that he is puzzling so much. Let me explain, I've read that the developing child will sometimes excel in one area and other areas of development will lag as a result. In Nathan's case, he is using so much development energy into doing his puzzles that his language development is lagging. Well, that's my theory and I'm sticking to it.

I mean the puzzles that he does are amazing! He is currently working on a US puzzle and also an interlocking puzzle. The interlocking puzzle is the first one that does not have a picture of the solved puzzle under the pieces, so he needs lots of help with this one. But that doesn't stop him from trying. As I'm typing this right now, I can hear in the monitor wooden puzzle pieces clicking away as he tries to put it together (I'm assuming he is working on the interlocking puzzle right now -- no way of peeking in and checking!) Of course Nathan is suppose to be going to sleep right now, and he eventually he will.