My 3 1/2 year old is still not speaking. He says a lot of words now, but not speaking sentences and doesn’t always use his words. I had him in speech last year because he wasn’t saying much so I just wanted to help him get where he needed to be. We stopped going this last summer because of the cost. But with him still not speaking now and wanting him in preschool we decided to look into speech again. One of the elementary schools in my town offers speech. I had him for an evaluation and she said she had concerns. I had a packet to fill out about his speech, fine and gross motor. She called me back today as I knew what she was going to say, saying he is going to need special education classes because he is behind on cognitive and social skills along with speech. So he’s getting a couple more evaluations to see what the issues is and where to start to help him and so we can get him in preschool this year. My heart is broken. Instantly my thought is where did I fail as a mother? What did I do wrong? And it scares me to think he could be bullied as he gets older. I was the kid no one wanted to play with or anything. So I never wanted my child to ever go through that. So now if there is something wrong, I don’t want other kids to pick on him. I know I’m thinking way ahead, but I just don’t want my baby getting hurt. And I’m not going to coddle him, he will understand there are people out there that are not nice. But I don’t want him getting bullied to the point it’s going to really have an emotional affect on him.

But at the same time he is a smart kid. He does what I ask him to do. He knows how to count to 20, he recognizes his numbers. He knows his whole Alphabet in order and recognizes his letters. And animals, their sounds. Colors, shapes. A lot of other stuff. And I’m very proud of him for that.

So if this is all over the place. I’m just upset. I’m just ready for these evaluations to get done so he can start getting the help he needs.