Spring is here, and an update on Tonito

I love my garden in the spring: daffodils, tulips, and then so many varities of rhododendrons! The orange flowers on our tulip tree, magenta flowers on our crab apple tree, and many, many more! If you notice behind Tonito, there is a little wire garden fence the old owners put in meant to keep out the bunnies. All 3 years we have been here there has been a bunny nest *inside* this fence, and this year is no different! Mr. Fatty (the kids named the mommy bunny) had her babies, and they are enjoying eating my flowers and herbs that came back, while being protected from the dogs inside their little fence. It's almost cute to see how Mr. Fatty teachers her little ones where my cilantro and parsley grow as they hop through the grass and clover (that I would prefer they snack on!).

Tonito's recent tricks

Tonito has been going to a local college for speech once a week, (in addition to the speech he receives at preschool with Miss Bethany). He is improving SO MUCH!!!! He has so much more to say, and people can understand him! It is fantastic. Our biggest development has been "initial clusters" as they call them: sp- like spider, st- like stop, sc- like scar. When he started he absolutely couldn't make the sounds. We bought him a SPiderman t-shirt and pajamas, and practiced saying it over and over using the techniques that his speech teacher had showed us. I can tell you that he is the expert at "sp" now! He also has improved his "length of utterance"- how long his sentences are. With his newfound ability to communicate, Tonito now is learning to give his opinion more, share stories about school, and slowly he is learning to ask for things that he wants ("Can I have more milk please mommy?"). We are so proud of him and so excited to get to know his personality even more. He is still the sweetest, nicest little boy, who adores cars, trucks, trains, construction vehicles, and Lightning McQueen. The first thing he does every morning is he hugs me and snuggles. Tonito LOVES to sleep and take naps and takes a little while to wake up. He likes to help me empty the dishwasher and empty the bathroom garbages, and he is proud to be in charge of taking out the recycling when it is full (I'm not taking this for granted because I know he is almost out of this helpful stage:). We are working on sharing and speaking up even more, but really developmentally he is a typical 4 year old boy who loves his mommy, papi and sisters.