is it really that simple?

today i watched my boys pretend.
now to most of you out there this might not seem like such a big deal but when you do what i do all day long developmental milestones are huge. this was also an awesome moment for me because pretend play is something i try and teach my clients every day. we spend days, months, years working on pretend play skills - how to make sipping sounds while pretending to drink - how to offer someone else a "sip" of what you're drinking. today jared was stirring in a bowl and taking "tastes" of whatever it was he thought he was cooking. after tasting it and i guess deeming it "good enough for mama" he offered me a taste too. caleb joined in after a few minutes of playing with tyler. he helped out by vacuuming the room and trying to locate a bowl to stir...
something about watching my boys play and pretend today was just crazy. when a child's brain develops and functions "typically" - the way we all expect it to work - development, play skills, speech, motor function, social engagement...all of it just falls into place. each child may not be on the same trajectory but they each maintain a general level of functioning that keeps them away from labels such as Autistic Disorder and Pervasive Developmental Disorder and Intellectual Disability...
there have been days (sometimes weeks) over the last 14 months that Angela and I have worried about caleb's development. we were once told he had a "motivational delay" - told that if he didn't start to roll or crawl but a certain age we should seek physical therapy - at times we struggled with whether or not we needed to seek occupational therapy for him due to gross motor delays...but in the end caleb simply marches to the beat of his own drummer. he may develop differently than jared but at the end of the day he remains on the spectrum of typical development and i thank god every day for that
i watch my children play and pretend and i realize a few things.
a) my job while incredibly important is also incredibly depressing at times when i realize that many of these children will never develop skills i already see emerging in my boys
b) when it comes to development i have too much information which is hard
c) at the end of the day my boys are my boys and that's all i have to worry about

we were pretending to drink

this boy loves his doggie

yummy bread

trying to make PB&J

mmm...yummy!

stir and...

taste!

my turn!

time to clean up

round 2

cleaning is easier sitting down

trying to feed tyler (you can barely see the spoon in his hand)