2003-03-31-8:49 a.m.
On Saturday, Ro baby said one,two, three which is what we always say before we swing him in the air while we're all walking together. He said it with us. It was so nice to hear his little voice. I was really happy to hear him say something. I've been really worried about autism since a friend of a friend's son developed the condition. He developed normally until about 18 months and then he slowly went into his own little world. He's five now and doesn't ever make eye contact or speak. It's really heart breaking.

Anyhow, one of the symptoms of autistic like problems is losing skills that they had previously acquired -- like speech. Ro baby said his first word (bye-bye) at about 7.5 months, which surprised me because he's a boy and they don't usually speak early. I think "normal" for any baby is around 10 - 12 months. So, because of his early endeavors, I expected him to be quite glib by 20 months and he "talks" all the time in his language but his use of distinct words has dropped markedly since about Thanksgiving. At that time, he was saying "mama" and "bye-bye" and "baba" and such several times a day --- then it went to every few days and then weeks that he never even said "mama". I've been trying not to get alarmed. Now, he only says about one distinct word a week. He's gone as long as two weeks with out saying anything remotely discernable.

He's also always been one for the one off word. I've heard him say, spaghetti, doggie, dirty, and shoes. My mother has heard him say tractor, "kakture". He says them with pretty good diction and at the appropriate moment, but then he never says them again. I'm somewhat bewildered by this. He probably won't say one, two, three again for ages.

My dad had a book about that had a number of quizzes in it about how to tell if your toddler is normal, a genius, or mentally retarded in some way. The funny thing was that the questions and correct answers to all the questions were identical in each quiz, which was the joke. I thought it was funny because toddlers do seem a little like idiot savants or something. One minute you think they're a genius and the next you're convinced they're sub normal in some way.

hoops
Ro baby is all about being physical. When we took him to the playground for the first time this year -- just as the snow was melting off. He found a flat basketball and was so joyous. I was stunned when he grabbed it and ran to the basket and positioned himself right under it and then threw the ball -- which went nowhere near it of course, but I was impressed with his memory. He hasn't seen anyone touch a basketball or play on a basketball court since October -- but he still remembers what it's all about five months later.

The playground is actually going to be somewhat problematic because Ro baby would rather play basketball than play on the equipment. When he sees a group of guys playing, he beelines for them and I have to drag him away kicking and screaming. He has no interest in just watching them. He wants to play. The other day, two sets of people were playing on either end of a court. One group gave Ro baby their ball because they couldn't believe he was so desperate for it. He grabbed the ball and ran to the other end of the court to join in the other game, which was still continuing. The whole court just busted out laughing at this little, tiny guy surrounded by all these big, tall college guys and yet still thinking he's going to play like them. They can't believe how into basketball he is because he's so tiny. He's still so tiny.

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