T-t-t-t-today, Junior!

A month or so ago Eli developed a stutter.

I wasn't too worried because 1) Myka did the EXACT same thing at age 3 (see? actually he is advanced...) and 2) after panicking a little when Myka started stuttering, I found out that it's not concerning to anyone but the parents unless it is a specific letter or sound that is causing the problem.  Since they both began their stuttering with the first word to any sentence it was more a matter of their brain and their mouth being out of sync than a real speech problem.

Eli woke up one day having trouble with the first word to every sentence, and it progressed to where he couldn't get out any words in a sentence without saying the first syllable at least 3 or 4 times.  After about 3 weeks he started to realize he was doing it and would finally stop and say, "c-c-c-c-c-can y-y-you just say it?"  Usually I would know what he was trying to say but just let him struggle through it, and when I asked why he wanted me to say it for him he would say, "my my my my mouth won't work."

Here is pretty much the worst of what we saw.  Watching this video with us was the first time we think he realized he was doing it.



Not that stuttering is funny, but the highlight of it all for us was when he was sitting at the table trying to ask Kurt something with the word "people" in it and we heard, "p-p-p-p--p,p-p,p-(smile) (giggle) I said pee-pee." 

Then sometime last week I noticed it was pretty much gone, which was good because waiting for the words to come was really testing my pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-patience. 

This video is 11 days later.

And yes, he did say he doesn't like swimming.  One problem gone and another emerges.