As K grows we see more of his personality traits (on his good days when he can focus and be himself as much as is possible for him). He is definitely an attention starved joker.
He now thinks its hilarious to imitate my voice when I am cross with him. If I grind my teeth and say his name because he has just cracked an egg on the floor from the fridge, he belly laughs and tries to copy me, not quite managing because he can't stop cracking himself up.
Sometimes he will walk up to the mirror and then imitate me, laughing at his own reflection!
When we ask him to go to sleep, he will sneak out of his room and laugh at us and run back in.
He does all kinds of pretend scenarios of him being "stuck" while he is hanging upside down on the couch and all kinds of funny scripts emerge. "I can't reach it", "Come on help me", "I falling" and so on.
I think K has learned now that there are more entertaining ways of getting attention and that is all a good thing.
There has been a recent burst of declarative language or describing the environment in broken sentences and scripts. "That's a building", "Where's is the coffee? Oh no you dropped it!"(When he shook the table accidentally and my coffee spilled everywhere). "Mmm Sugar. Its delicious", while tasting the batter when making his french toast in the morning.
Last night he woke up really upset and insisted "You want to sleep with Jaan" (he has been using pronouns incorrectly, we haven't taught him any, they are just scripts he has picked up), "I scared", "Its dark". Its sad that he had a nightmare or got scared but we are usually over joyed at his use of genuine language in the face of some extreme emotional experience.
And the other day I told him my tummy hurt and he looked at me with the most concerned expression and asked, "Do you need a bandage?".
He is a funny guy with a great personality and a lot of things crammed in his little head. Half his trouble is physically and emotionally regulating himself to focus enough to express his thoughts.
Our non-verbal 3 year old has come a long way.
I know the joy you are feeling!!! We waited for a very long time for Pamela to learn declarative language and to be able to express herself. Khaled is really doing well to be able to make jokes at such a young age!
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