P is for Phonics

Leon has been doing great lately. He can write his name and a few other letters, he’s learning phonics (“Pizza starts with P!”), and he can sign his ABCs as fast as I can sing them. His teacher is amused that he’s so enthralled with the alphabet; as soon as we walk in the room on Monday mornings, he’s craning his neck to see if the letter of the week was changed to what he predicted. He even tries to “read” based on context (“S-T-A-R-B-U-C-K-S! That spells ‘coffee’!”). 

He’s so sweet and goofy, and he apparently has a reputation at daycare for being pretty animated and lively. He’s got a few (girl) friends at daycare who talk about him often — one told her mom that he’s cute and one told her mom he’s her boyfriend. And after one boy had a particularly rough transition into preschool from being home with his grandma all day, I encouraged Leon to play with him. His mom came to us during the friendship party on Friday and invited Leon to his birthday party; she said he talks about Leon as soon as he wakes up in the morning!

After consulting with his pediatrician, we dismissed him from occupational therapy. He has been doing well with noises lately (which may or may not be due to OT?), and although he still gets upset occasionally, he can verbalize that he’s uncomfortable and needs his headphones, which we considered sufficient progress. He still asks to see Ms. Emily from time to time — but as for Minh and me, we don’t miss waking up early, driving over an hour in rush hour traffic, missing work, and paying $100 per session!