Our guy is a sweet soul. Absolutely nothing has come easy for him though. He has gone to speech therapy for years, and we and him have both dealt with that. He gets really frustrated when we can't understand him, and sometimes we actually have no idea what he's saying. He's making amazing progress. This has lead him to be pretty shy, because he just doesn't want to talk to anyone, for fear they won't understand him. This has lead him to not have a ton of friends, cause other 10 years can't shut up and he can't seem to talk haha. He does have one friend who I am convinced is a literal angel. He is so patient and some how understands Chris even better than we do.

He sees his school's speech specialists and then once a week we send him to a private practice. It's expensive and a 30 minute drive, but it's worth it and it's helping. R's, T's, Ch's, W's, you name it.

It took forever for him to learn how to read. We hired private teachers and worked with him so much individually. He's in 5th grade, but probably reads at a 2nd grade level. He's at grade level in math and science, and is a terrific artist, but reading just is so hard for him. No real developmental or other disorders, just slow to read and can't talk...poor kid.

But, for all the hard times, he is an amazing little soccer player. He is playing for a club in Utah County, and his team is in the highest competitive division for the UYSA. He's far and away the best on his team. I've had no less than 6 coaches from other clubs trying to recruit him, Chris wouldn't ever consider it, so I don't. I am an assistant on the team and watching him last night run circles around these kids just felt so good to see. It's been this way since he was 4, and never gets old.

Just knowing how much he's struggled to make friends, read, and even speak, to know that God still gave him this incredible outlet, is such a blessing in my life and his.

His coach made him play goalie the first half, he is incredible. Had several acrobatic saves and shut the team out the first half. Then he started at forward in the second half, scored a hat trick in about 6 minutes, and then his coach told him he needed him to anchor the defensive line, and he dominated.

His coach turned to me on the bench last night and said, "it's going to be awesome watching Chris play D1 soccer one day." My hurt could have burst. I know he's only 10 and maybe things won't pan out like that, but for these difficult times now, at least he is successful at something. Anyways, just needed to put this out there. My sweet little guy needs this!