Hi! I'm new. I hesitated to post because my son is only 16 months old. We are, unfortunately, having some issues and after reading through many threads I know many of you dealt with similar things and probably have good advice. I have no one IRL that I can to since the other Moms look at me like I'm raising an alien.
I don't know what the future holds for my son but I can't worry about that yet. I have to survive right now first.
We are a dual-PhD home and our son is the first and only child (and is making a good case for himself to stay that way). I am MG and my husband is PG so we are not shocked by his development.
Problem #1: My son talks. About 50% of his intelligible speech is in small phrases or sentences and the rest is single words. This is fantastic when he is interacting with an adult or older child but when he is in our play group (8 other kids all born about the same time he was) he tries to talk to the other toddlers. He will ask them for their toys by verbalizing and signing and of course they do not understand him. It goes something like this: Ball? Please? This ball please? Blue ball? Please? This! Thiiiiis! Waaaaaaaah!!!!! ~cue meltdown~
Should I be looking for 3 or 4 yo children for play dates? Physically he is like a normal 16 month old so he cannot keep up with the older kids. He is really frustrated. I don't know how to help him.
Problem #2: We are blowing through toys. Since he didn't walk until 14.5 months he had a lot of time to sit there and figure stuff out I guess. He was stacking towers of 12-15 blocks/other shapes at 12 months and he is now over that. Then he went to puzzles. He is over that. Then the shape sorting cubes and stacking toys came out, but he got that and he's done with that too. Now what? We read books all the time. That is his favorite thing to do. I have boxes upon boxes of books. He's even started "reading" them to himself. He turns the pages and says: What is that? Cow! Mooo! Moooo! It's like am irrelevant in the process now. Ha! Any toy suggestions?
Problem #3: Others Mommies give me death stares. I guess this is a me problem. I had no idea that other Moms would be so...ummm...competitive? I am not doing anything to my son to make him this way. I let him lead when he is playing and learning and I follow his lead. I don't brag about him and in fact I rarely say anything about him at all in an effort to avoid "the look." I find I frequently want to slink off in a corner when we are around other children his age. My son is super social and he always goes up to older children and adults.
I read about another Mom who said she did some thing where the ran through the house with her then toddler and did a rapid fire naming of objects. I laughed so hard. That's me and my son every morning. He wakes up, nurses, and then we start in the bedroom and he names everything on the way to the kitchen. At least I know I'm not alone!
