Dora the Explorer is a Hoochie Mama

Mr. Little Man does not speak. He used to have quite a large vocabulary in 2 languages (English & German) and his rather quick loss of speech is one of the things that led to his diagnosis of autism. So now we do a little bit of sign language and we've just really developed our own method of communication over the last year. He babbles ALL OF THE TIME, just not words.

He has a small army of therapists that are really working hard on his speech and about 2 months ago something clicked. He now says NO, HI, BYE BYE, UH-OH and ELMO. He will sometimes repeat words, however, he does not say anything without a prompt and he rarely uses a word appropriately. The point is we are making progress and I couldn't be happier.

He also discovered Dora the Explorer and thanks to a set of grandparents who do not understand the words "stop buying him stuff" he was promptly loaded down with all things Dora. He got Dora books, Dora computer games, Dora DVDs, Dora legos......the whole nine. Every night before he goes to bed he kisses his Dora Lego and tucks her in. I am not sure what they are doing in bed but it involves a whole lot of giggling. I suspect that Dora may be his girlfriend.

Now, he gets to watch 1 hour of TV per day. Usually we watch an episode of the Muppets or Blues Clues or Sesame Street, but lately he has been wanting to watch Dora. I don't know what you know about this heifer, but her whole deal is teaching people how to speak Spanish.

Imagine my surprise last night when I gave him his dinner and out of nowhere he said "GRACIAS". Ummmm, what? "Gracias". At first I thought it was a fluke, but he really tried to repeat some of the phrases she was saying last night when we watched the DVD. Damn, this child has no desire to speak unless Dora says it first. Bitch.

What I am reading: Facing Autism
What I am listening to: Jack's Mannequin and Imogen Heap