He doesn't spend his ENTIRE day playing with baby toys...

Today's challenge is a picture of something that made a huge impact on your life recently.

I really want to say it is the freedom fighters being executed in Libya, or my fellow civil servants protesting in Wisconsin. The problem is that those events haven't truly impacted my personal life, even if they have impacted my emotions. After much soul-searching, I finally realized the one thing that has had a huge impact on my life, even if the impact began last September...

I honestly believe that a parent simply knows when their child may not be like other children. With Eric it came early. I started to sense something was wrong when he wasn't babbling at 6 months. By a year, he could make some sounds, even say "yum yum" or "dada," but as soon as he would begin saying a certain sound, he would stop. It was almost as if he forgot and would lose language connections as quickly as they would begin. Eric walked at around one, but always on his toes. On play-dates, kids that were younger than him would use spoons with ease while Eric would use only his fingers. I didn't hear Eric say "mama" until he was 22 months old. Only a mother can understand what it feels like to wait so long to hear your name spoken. There were a lot of happy tears that day, let me tell you...

We finally had him tested when he was just over two years old. Eric was diagnosed with language delays, gross motor and fine motor delays. I beat myself up for this, as Rachel was a baby during critical windows of opportunity in Eric's development. Eric had therapists coming and going from our house, but it wasn't until he started a preschool for other children with delays that real progress was made.

In the first few weeks of starting school, Eric's speech became intelligible to John and I. Within a few months he was talking in 4 word phrases. And now he can speak in complete sentences. He gets verbs confused a lot, but it's so amazing to actually have a conversation with my child. Eric's school is paid for with my tax dollars, and another huge bonus is that Eric's preschool potty-trains, and Eric is now completely potty-trained except at night.

Eric catching up to his peers developmental... it's not as sensational as protests or remarkable as a revolution, but it means a heck of a lot to us.