Fading a way

Watching my little boy Jeffrey playing happily with his toys, I smiled.

‘Mama,’ he babbled away chirpily as he raced cars around the floor.

He was my whole world.

But as he turned three, my fiancé Andrew Charlesworth, 35, and I noticed Jeffrey’s speech wasn’t improving.

He could say a few words here and there, but any further progress had pretty much stalled.

‘Boys are lazier,’ my mum Angie said when I mentioned it. ‘I’m sure he’ll catch up.’

I was sure she was right.

But still, I kept a close eye on Jeffrey.

‘We’ve noticed it, too,’ a nursery worker said when I asked them about it. ‘We could try referring him to a speech therapist.’

‘We’ll give it a go,’