For Mac’s whole life, I have compared him to other kids. Every growth and milestone achievement has been observed, noted and marked. And he’s always been ‘behind’. At least in my mind. Whatever his little girlfriends would do, he would be a few months behind. The worrier in me would think, Oh no! There’s something going on! He’ll never get it! Everyone always said, It’s boys. They’re always behind girls! Don’t worry about it. He’s fine! Then, sure enough, a few months later, he would pick it up. So as he got older, I stopped worrying about it so much, but I still noted that he was ‘behind’ everyone else. He didn’t crawl till 9 months. He didn’t know his alphabet as quickly. He had no letter recognition by 2, couldn’t pump on the swing, doesn’t color things in, can’t write very neatly, etc… Again, not that big of a deal, so I wasn’t losing sleep about it, but still I noticed.
My latest ‘notice’ has been that he doesn’t draw stick figures. Never. I used to encourage him to draw faces, smileys, etc… but nothing. He refused. So, I let it go, but noticed that kids much younger than him would draw pictures of their families, themselves, their friends… Come to think of it, he doesn’t really draw anything. He just colors ‘blobs’ of color around a piece of paper. So there was the voice in the back of my head again. What is wrong? Why doesn’t he draw pictures? What should I do to teach him this? He can’t go through life not knowing how to draw at all!! 🙂
Then today. “Mom, I’m gonna draw you.”