Excessive Drool!

This morning, I had parent teacher conferences at ye olde preschool.  Alex was first, and a couple of words immediately caught my eye when I sat down and glanced at her written summary.  "Excessive drool?"  I thought quizzically.  "Is that really a standard measurement of preschool intelligence?"

This is an excessively wet, sloppy kiss.

The excessive drooling (I suppose all the slobber CAN be a bit much at times) is apparently indicative of his still maturing mouth and tongue muscles.  The teacher thinks that Alex may need to be evaluated for his speech, although I have to say I disagree with this assessment.  The kid has come a long way in these past four months, and his constant running commentary has exceeded adorable and gone straight to uncharted levels of annoyance.  He points out everything he sees, brings up topics from days and weeks past, and has started introducing his questions with "Can I ask you a question?" He is ridiculously friendly with strangers when we're out and about, approaching whoever is closest in the supermarket to brag about how he's getting donuts.  He has the same personality as Andy had at his age.  Outgoing.  Friendly.  Absolutely no sense of stranger danger.  He's a regular people person.  I still find this attitude in my children so strangely bizarre as I'm one to go out of my way to avoid talking to most people if I can help it.  I don't want anyone to know that I'm buying donuts in Walmart.  I don't need to say hello and good-bye to everyone I meet.  I have enough going on these days without all of that taxing small talk.

So there's the excessive drool (admittedly pretty gross) and the teacher's perception of his possibility of a speech delay, but this little guy of mine is still a young two.  He's not even two and a half yet! And so I will push off any thoughts of having him evaluated until after he's two and a half or until the slobber becomes completely unbearable and starts collecting in sloppy puddles around his feet, whichever comes first.  Otherwise, Alex is doing just fine and has basically met all of his other "goals" on the checklist.  He's just a wonderful child with a sweet little spirit.  He loves going to preschool and is a happy guy.

On to Andy's conference next, of which there was thankfully no mention of any drool.  Andy had a stellar review, and I felt myself getting a little teary with pride as I looked through his binder of work. I find it amazing the things these kids accomplish in preschool.  Writing, patterns, graphing, science experiments, the whole shebang.  And the teacher said, "He likes doing EVERYTHING."  Every task or project she gives him, he does wholeheartedly.  I got the feeling the teacher wanted to admit to me, "Andy's definitely one of my favorites," but as she's a professional, I think she was able to hold it back.  Just barely.

She did bring up something else mildly amusing after the conference when we were standing around talking with another mom (also a friend).  Andy had apparently gone up to the assistant teacher one day and either asked her if he was adopted or told her that he was adopted or asked him if she knew he was adopted or something like that about him being adopted.  The teacher said that she didn't think he was adopted but that it was an interesting subject for him to bring up and she'd mention it to me.  I know exactly why Andy's talking about being adopted.  Caillou (you know Caillou, right?) has an adopted friend, and Andy had a lot of questions about what being adopted was after we watched that episode.  When I explained what that meant, Andy wanted to know if we knew anybody, other than Caillou's friend (who we really only know very marginally), who was adopted.

"Well, actually, your friend Joey is adopted," I told him.  "He grew in another mommy's tummy but right after the doctor took him out, he went to his forever mommy and daddy."

"Joey?"  Andy said, thinking.  "You mean my friend Joey with the tractor?"

Ah, the big motorized toy tractor.  Little Joey's claim to fame.

"Yep, Joey with the tractor."

"So... if you're adopted... that means... YOU GET TO HAVE A TRACTOR???!!"

Ever since then, Andy's been asking for me to get someone to adopt him so he can have a tractor.  I think that if the assistant teacher would have let Andy go on with his adoption spiel, she would have realized that he was asking for her to adopt him and also buy him the requisite tractor.  Ah.  Kids.