42. Musings on a Two-Year-Old

On my coffee table there are currently seven photo albums. Five are pink: two are blue. Each depicts a year in the life of one of my children. I recently finished putting together Janie's latest book, so we pulled out the rest to see how she and Thomas have grown. 

While looking through Thomas's book from his first to second birthday, I noticed several interesting things. First, Thomas kept pointing to himself and exclaiming "Baby Berto!" I'd tell him that it was actually Baby Thomas and that Baby Berto was still in heaven when those pictures were taken. He's acknowledge me, correct himself, turn the page, and promptly point at himself again and yell "Baby Berto!" 

I found it interesting that even though in the pictures he is between six and twelve months older than Berto is now, he still thinks that just about anyone significantly younger than him must be Berto. Unless the baby is wearing a dress. Then she is simply "baby." 

Second, for the latter half of the book, he tended to correctly identify himself. "Well, he just figured out they were all him" you may say. However, he was flipping randomly through the pages, going back and forth and back and forth and back. And it seemed the more recent the picture. The better able he was to identify himself. So either he recognizes some feature in himself that developed around the 18 month mark or he remembers moments from a year ago.

Third takes a bit of background. Thomas had a late start with his speech. He could communicate on a very basic level only until about four months ago. Before then, we were lucky to understand a single word from him. Meanwhile he had friends his age who spoke well, some even in full sentences. They never seemed to mind his lack of speech, but it worried me enough that we got him set up with a speech therapist. He's been seeing her for six months and has blossomed incredibly. 

Around the same time he started his speech therapy, a few months before he really started talking, his best friend, James moved away. And by "best friend" I mean the kid he spent the most time with. They were born five weeks apart and saw each other on average at least once a week until the day James moved. They always played well together and Thomas was always excited to see James. But because he spoke so little, the closest he had ever come to saying "James" was some similar to "Day." Since they moved, about six months ago, they've seen each other on FaceTime a handful of times but haven't been able to play at all. So I was totally surprised when Thomas saw a picture of James and yelled "Dames! It's Dames!" Thank you speech therapy and baby friendships! Apparently two year olds have better memories than I give them credit for. It was sweet to see that even though he hadn't been able to say his name when they were together, he loved his friend enough and finally cares about communicating enough, that he was able to (almost) say his name right.

Fourth, Thomas may be shy in public, but he's pretty comfortable with himself at home. Pointing at a picture of himself in just a diaper he said "Thomas! Me pretty!" And have his picture a kiss.