"The Boy of Few Words" No More

You may recall that Zach was slow to talk. He really didn't say much more than "Mama", "Daddy" and "Grover" until he was about 2 1/2. When he started preschool, he didn't speak at all at school for over a year. Then, one day this past spring, the floodgates opened and he just started rambling on to anyone who'd listen. (Hmmm...wonder where he gets it...)

I had to stop by the ceramics studio Friday for about 20 minutes, and had to bring the kids with me. The studio was pretty quiet save for two classmates, and Zach became quick friends with Betsy, an older woman who graciously listened to Zach's stories about Spiderman while I ran frantically around getting pieces ready for firing.

As we were getting ready to go, I thanked Betsy for her patience. We were sitting at a row of wheels side-by-side, me in the middle, Zach to my immediate right, and Betsy about 6 feet down the row to my left. Zach was playing with some scrap clay while I cleaned my wheel. Betsy commented on how articulate Zach is, and I said something like, "Can you believe he didn't even open his mouth at school until this past March?"

Zach leaned forward, craned his neck sideways to look past me at Betsy and exclaimed, "Yeah, but I open my mouth all the time now!"