This is Halloween! This is Halloween! This is Halloween!

In case anyone missed it. It was pretty awesome. Collin was a monkey; or a bear, or a mouse if you listen to any of the number of sort of dumb people who said "oh what a cute (fill in the blank of wrong costume choice)" that we encountered on our first walking trick or treating adventure. I say he looks like a monkey...when's the last time you saw a bear with a banana on his paw...or a mouse for that matter!
It was great because it followed our speech therapy evaluation this afternoon...his second. We learned a bit more from this gal than from the UCLA doctor. Our new therapist, Amber with a last name that no parent, let alone a kid with a speech problem could pronounce, so we'll just call her Amber, which then makes her sound kind of like a high school cheerleader who maybe can't be an expert in anything except gum snapping---sorry to diss the high school cheerleaders.

Anyway, she says she thinks that based on his feeding problems in infancy, the fact that he has that "word a day thing" where he will suddenly say words totally clearly but then never say them again, and a handful of other signs, like having words and dropping them, etc, he is likely suffering from a condition called verbal aproxyia (I have no idea if I'm spelling that right). This means that the muscles in his mouth are not actually responding to the signals that his little brain is sending him. So it's a connection problem between the two systems.

Luckily, she said it's very treatable and correctable (and won't have any lasting learning effects) with therapy and she said his receptive language is totally on target, if not above (agreeing with the UCLA doctor). She was wowed by it actually. Mr. Collin was a star with all her questions, giving her little bear a drink and putting him right to bed, handing her a cup, a shoe and block instantly, even driving her little car in circles around the room. Oh, and pointing at pictures in her little book, forget about it. He's an ace! Just don't ask him to TALK about any of it. He'd be a perfect mobster. The whole assessment pooped him out though!

But, back to the effect of all of this on HALLOWEEN! The point is, he kind of hears himself repeating things okay, even if he's totally wrong. So, when we told him to say "trick or treat," he decided that "gabba gabba gee" was definitely the way to go. He said exactly that every single time. Wrong, but could anything be cuter than that? Once, and only once at a house about a block away, we got it right exactly, but that's it. Other than that, "gabba gabba gee." Yes, there's a video and it's painfully cute, especially since, he enjoyed trading candy with me back and forth once he realized that's what you are supposed to do after saying "gabba gabba gee." And, he promptly put the wrapped candy in his mouth. Yumm!

And of course, he was adorable in his monkey suit and didn't really want to take it off! I'm pretty shocked about that part, especially since after a few hours, I could see the sweaty hair plastered to his head. I finally took the head off and let him cool down a bit. You know what? He smelled really bad! For the first time ever, I didn't want to snuggle him! He smelled THAT BAD!
But, this morning, it was back to snuggle as usual and apparently yesterday's hat business has stuck, partially because of Miss Grace because he saw this hat in a pile of clothes given to us by a neighbor and he kept repeating "Tace! Tace!" (his word for Grace) and wanting to wear it. Grace wears a hat all the time to the park, and for all 19 months of Mr. Collin's life, hats have been a battle. Voila, a girl he loves does it and it's a miracle, hats are Kosher. Apparently, monkey head plus Grace wearing hat equals hats are cool. All in all a good day!