~Lub You~

Growing up, I was rather obsessed with milestones, particularly in the academic world. I can remember being in the sixth grade and taking a reading level test, and being pleased as pie with myself that this test told me I was reading at an 11th grade level.  

In college, milestones were measured in days. Everyday the freshmen would shout out different annual milestones, "There are now 121 days to go until the class of 2008 graduates", and I knew for four years how many days away that milestone  was.  

But now that I have had a child, I have grown to despise milestones.  From the moment a baby is born, there are constant milestones that they should be reaching-eating, sleeping, etc.  As they grow, they become a little more spread out, but as parents we are constantly reminded of what they should be 'achieving'.  Each time I take Rowen to the doctor the first thing I am handed is a sheet of what milestones he should be achieving at a certain age.  Most times I move through the list pretty quickly, mentally checking most of the blocks for Rowen.

One block I haven't been able to check yet is speech.  At his one year appointment, the sheet told me he should be saying 5-10 words by now.  Excuse me?  We think Rowen is pretty smart, as all parents do about their child, but 5-10 words, that hadn't happened. At this point the panic began to set in.  What were we doing wrong? 

What we do know is that Rowen wants to communicate with us.  While our preference as parents would be him using sign, at school they point to what they want, and in this case we are going to have to defer to what he does at school simply because they don't use sign there.  And it works, to an extent. There have been many moments of frustration on both our part and Rowen's when he can't tell us exactly what he wants.  But we are making progress.

And while he can't say 10 words yet, he can say somethings.  He may not call Rudy and I mom and dad, but he calls his best friends, Jack and Lola, by name.  Rowen loves them, and I love that they come when he calls them.  He also says thank you, for almost every thing, which makes me believe we are raising a well mannered little gentleman.

But my favorite thing he says, which I'm sure he doesn't know the meaning of just yet, speaks volumes to me.  Each night as we tuck him into bed, Rudy and I both take a moment to kiss him goodnight.  After I kiss him I say goodnight Rowen, I love you. And in his small little bedtime voice he looks up at me and says lub you and smiles.  

Lub you, two little words from my sweet little boy.  I may worry that he hasn't reached the talking milestone, and isn't reciting the Constitution's Preamble just yet, but those two little words reassure me that we will get there.  In our own sweet time. And right now a few names, some good manners, and a little lub is enough of a milestone for me.