GGG made a comment on one of my other threads about being in denial and I've decided that's probably why I found this forum in the first place. I have a serious case of denial going on and I'm not sure how to get rid of it.

I have an overwhelming mountain of evidence sitting in front of me that my child is not like other children his age yet I still can't get it through my head. Is it normal to have a kind of mourning period for what one thought parenthood would be like vs. the reality of parenting an asynchronous child?

DS (21 months) has the vocabulary and speech abilities similar to children who are 3-3.5 years old. He has already hit those "learning" milestones that people associate with the PreK years (letters, numbers, small quantities, basic shapes, basic 3D shapes, colors) and is moving into actually writing letters, recognizing words both in and out of context, and he has learned most of the complex shapes, like trapezoid and octagon.

I frequently describe my child as a soul-sucking knowledge dementor (only to those closest to me). Ha! I love my little dementor with all my heart but whew!! He is exhausting in ways that other children do not seem to be exhausting and he has been like this since day 1. Back then I didn't know why he seemed to be exhausting in a different way but now I have a much better idea.

I still have not found other parents going through the same types of things as I am which makes this a lonely parenting journey so far. Playdates go something like this:

Other Mom: John has started putting together two words phrases! It's so neat! Is your DS starting that?

DS walks up: Mommy! John is holding the orange balloon. This little one. I mush the little one. ("this" being a balloon that is little compared to John's balloon)

Yep, that happened. And there I sat like a goober saying my son uses two words phrases too because playgroups seem to be all about talking about what your kid does and does not do and does and does not eat. I just want to be able to swap Mom war stories with a Mom who is also going through this and I can't find any! I want to find another kid like mine so my son doesn't seem so different. And somehow, I want to feel more comfortable with the kid I am raising.