Mama...

yep, that's right....that beautiful word was finally released from the lips of my dear son at the tender age of 100 months and 21 days old! I remember various mom's "competing" when my others were younger saying "Johnny said supercalifragilisticexpealidocious at only 10 months old!" So now I get the bragging rights! It was absolutely beautiful! I watched this wonderful documentary on HBO (Tivo it or get it on demand if you can...right now Charter has it on demand under HBO documentaries). The documentary is called "Autism: The Musical" and it's about a single mother who has an autistic son that is very similar to E...only slightly more high-functioning and he's about 12 years old. She started this project to put on a musical with a bunch of autistic kids. I watched how she worked with her son and made him look at her and refused to let him withdraw into his world and it was inspiring. Her son has very little verbal skills...he can say a few consonant sounds, but she is constantly working with him to respond to her questions with the beginning consonant of the word. For example she would say "Johnny, what do you want to drink?" and he might respond "Mmmm" for "milk". So I tried using her approach to get E to say Mama. He was trying so hard...I knew he wanted to say it...he kept pursing his lips together with a great look of concentration on his face. It was almost like watching someone with a severe stutter try to get a word out. Then he said "mmm" and I coaxed him a little more and a little more and he finally said "mmmmmaammmmmaa". He hasn't really said it again, but he keeps saying "mmmm". If I never here the word again I will still remember what it sounded like. I'm going to try to tape it tonight and post it so everyone can at least see how hard he is trying!