The toddler loves to babble. From an early age he said random full words. Right now, he mostly has a normal toddler vocabulary with little words like ma-ma, bal, and boo(k). But if I listen closely, he will blurt out with an occasional garbled full sentence.

My preschooler has worried me, because he sometimes refuses to talk. I even took him in to get evaluated. He tested just fine, and gradually he has started to talk more. He doesn’t babble, never has. He has frequently said, “I don’t know how to say it.”

Today he come up to me upset. I’m tired of guessing what’s wrong and not allowing him the opportunity to talk. I asked vague questions to try to get him talking. The problem was inside, but not in any specific room. I was greatly confused at this point. He paused and said, “I think it is in my bedroom.” I still had no idea what was wrong. We went to his bedroom where he promptly found the car he had lost.

I realized today I had to self discipline myself with chores. I could probably spend the majority of every day cleaning and gardening. But I really don’t want to. Today I focused on limiting the amount of chores I did to fit within the time frame I had. The garden still has weeds, the house has crumbs, and I have a ton of chores I could do. But nothing is a disaster because I did work at least a bit. Now I have had more time to spend with my children: listening to them read books, playing Frisbee tag (I still don’t understand the rules), and enjoying their smiles.