Well, it ended up being strep. And it was awful, but after a week of misery, and a week of recovery and weirdness from him, we are back in the swing of things again! And I know I've blogged about it before... but I SWEAR that every time Zach gets a fever, about a week and a half later he has a language BOOM! And this was no exception. His Speech Therapist today was floored by how attentive he was and said that he was answering many of her questions before she has even finished asking them. Awesome!

We had a good Thanksgiving at the lake with my parents and Matt's Mom. Zach just loves his family and it's so great as each passing month goes by to see how much he is growing and developing relationships and just understanding of everything. He is super pumped for Christmas this year and already has a list for Santa. Fortunately Santa has obtained everything on his list for him too. :-) He "gets it" like never before. He knows that he will get presents on "number 25" from looking at his calendar. He knows that he gets to meet Santa this weekend and will ask him for his list of toys. He knew that riding the Priscilla the Pink Pig train at Lenox this year (as in years past) is the start of Christmas. He knows that the gifts under the tree aren't for him, so he's not opening them! That's major! His knowledge and curiosity are now so much fun, and it's just great for us as parents to finally be experiencing these things with him that we really should have been able to do last year. Everything is just so much more fun now that it doesn't all feel forced.

I really could go on and on about how well he's doing. So many great conversational spurts. Good reports from everyone involved with him. And he's even reading a bit. AND, and this is huge, he did some crafting with me last night. Huh? He did? Yep! This kid who has yet to even merely color in a coloring book in my presence actually sat down with me last night and decorated a Christmas Tree cut out. His teacher sent it home for us to decorate and send back, and I instantly dreaded it. Any type of art in the past just doesn't interest him. And it's not a boy thing. It's a lack of understanding what in the world he is doing it for, as well as a lack of attention span. But last night he sat willingly and happily used glittery paint tubes to color all over the tree. And didn't get up half way through. And I didn't have to force him by doing hand-over-hand as in the past with any crafting attempt. To many of you reading this, this seems like no big deal. But to our little man this was huge.

I found out that we have our Kindergarten transition meeting in March. That will be probably the biggest meeting I've even sat through. We will determine his plan for his Kindergarten year: will he need a parapro's help? If so, when throughout the day would he need this extra help? Will he still attend a special ed class as well as the typical class? What other support, if any, do we see him needing? And on and on. Very stressful. We will be trying our best to have him set up for success. And it's all a guessing game. But thankfully if it's not working, we can always change it. As a parent though, it's an emotional struggle. Truthfully, we don't want ANY services for our son, as we want him to be totally fine on his own in a typical environment. We so badly want the special needs title dropped. But he's just not there yet, so we have to put our wants and emotional needs aside and get services in place, because above everything - we want him to do well. And for it to be a positive experience. So this is a big meeting!!!

But first, Christmas!!! Tons of cool things ahead: visiting Santa, starting our advent calendars, Christmas sheets and pj's, making a gingerbread house, looking at lights, and telling Zach that it's not "number 25" yet each morning when he wakes up and comes right down to the tree to see if his presents are there yet :-) FUN!