He’s Done It!!

One year ago my heart broke as I read the report from our speech pathologist diagnosing Drew with Severe Phonological Disorder.  Obviously I was already well aware of the fact that he couldn’t talk, or at least not properly, but reading that diagnosis made it painfully real.  There was something wrong with my child.  But it also gave us hope.  We knew what the problem was and there was a plan put in place to work towards correcting the problem.  Today the tears were those of joy and relief.  We’ve known all year that Drew was responding to speech therapy amazingly well, but today I was told that he is now within a normal range for speech development!  One year ago I listened in agony as he failed again and again to say the words the therapists asked of him, translating the few that I could for her.  Today I listened with pride as he said almost every word clearly.  Even those that are still trouble are recognizable.  What an amazing difference a year can make!

This doesn’t mean the disorder is cured, however.  He still struggles with normal three-year-old sound difficulties and, unlike in most children, these problems will not simply disappear naturally.  We will have to continue to work with him and carefully teach him how to make these sounds and say these particular words.  And, as we continue with “school” work, learning the sounds the letters make will not come as easily to him as it may to many.  Reading may be difficult for him.  But we aren’t worried any more.  We know we can take on each delay as it comes and that he will be fully able to keep up with the other children his age.  I can’t wait to see the progress the next year brings!

Active Toddler? Try This Craft!

Every Tuesday afternoon the kids and I attend an early literacy program called “Mother Goose on the Loose” where the kids are engaged in crafts, stories, songs, and games.  It is great fun!  This past week they showed us a craft idea that we just had to try at home and I highly recommend it to anyone with toddlers needing to get their wiggles out, especially during our long winters.  It’s a simple activity cube:

It can be made two ways (or more, I’m sure).  We made it by cutting two paper bags in half (width wise), stuffing one with grocery bags and putting the stuffed bag end into the empty bag end, creating a soft cube.  The other option is to use a 2 litre milk carton to create the cube.  We wrapped ours in green construction paper as per Drew’s request, but it can be decorated any way your child wants.  I had to use duct tape in my wrapping because it was all we had! 

After creating your cube, write on each side a different activity.  Ours are: Running on the Spot, Twirl in a Circle, Stretching, Leap Frog Jumping, Jumping Jacks, and Dancing!  Then have your child toss the “dice” and do the activity the cube lands on.  It is fantastic fun, and easy!

“Mommy”

I have learned in the last few years that there there is really nothing more heartwarming than your children learning to call you “Mommy”.  Before having kids I wouldn’t have expected that to be one of the more touching moments they would bring, but it really is.  Honestly, I didn’t think it would ever bother me if they called me something else (ie. Mom, Mama, etc.)  And when I had a little boy who couldn’t properly speak and only called me by a general “mmm” sound or, on better days, “Om” it really didn’t bother me (beyond being bothered by the fact that speaking in general was so difficult for him).  But after therapy started and my precious baby called me “Mommy” for the first time I cried.  Like really cried.  It was almost as touching as the first moment I laid eyes on him after his birth (ok, the second time.  I really don’t remember the first!).  Last week I experienced the same exhilaration when my 18-month-old daughter said “Mommy” for the first time.  But this time the experience not only brought me to tears of joy, it really reminded me of just how important the title of “Mommy” is.  Jami-Lee had been trying to get my attention and I was busy preparing lunch and, though I responded with “Just a minute, Mommy is busy”, I didn’t turn around to see what she wanted.  After calling out “Ma! Ma!” another couple of times without the desired results, she called out in exasperation “Mommy!!”  It was in a moment when she really needed me, or though she did, when she really wanted me, that she finally called out that name.  That moment really highlighted for me that the title is a lot more than just the name they call me; it also means “I need you” and “I rely on you” and “I love you”.  It is a big title to fill and I pray each and every day that I can live up to it.

Speech Assessment #3

Drew had his third speech assessment today.  I don’t have the official results, but his therapist is very pleased with how he’s done over the Summer.  I couldn’t help but grin while I listened to him go through the testing booklet again saying word after words with clarity.  The first time we met with Melissa he was virtually unintelligible.  His progress is so much to celebrate.  However, this does not mean we are ready to stop working carefully with him every day to correct the problems that still exist.  Melissa is quite confident at this point that the sounds he still has difficulty with will develop on their own; however, she is still concerned about his sequencing, or how he puts sounds together.   It is still difficult for him to put multiple sounds together, so words that are more than two syllables are very difficult for him.  Today she also warned me that this could lead to difficulties with letter-sound association and difficulty learning to read.  Thankfully we are already doing everything she would have suggested for giving him a boost or head-start in learning to read: he can name all of his capital letters (we are working on lower case), he is part of a community early literacy group, we play early reading and phonics games, and we read daily.  Dr. Seuss is particularly helpful for children with speech difficulties because of his rhyme and rhythm;  he is also Drew’s favourite author.  Recently we also started reading pre-reader books together books together, and he loves them!  I admit that hearing that he may have trouble learning to read is hard to accept for a mother who loves to read so much I am still working towards an English BA!  It’s also difficult for a father who learned to read at four-years-old.  It is a struggle that neither of us can personally relate to and I hope that doesn’t cause us to become impatient or to have difficulty knowing how to help him.  All we can do is continue working closely with him and pray that God will continue to intervene, and I’m so thankful for the work he has done already in our little boy!

It’s Not So Easy…

Growing up, my mother had a wall hanging that read “God, grant me the patience to endure my blessings.”  Or maybe it was a magnet.  Regardless, I never understood it.  Even when I first became a mom myself I didn’t quite understand.  My precious baby boy who never cried was such a treat I couldn’t imagine why anyone would feel the need to cry out for patience in dealing with such a blessing, though I did quickly learn to appreciate the feeling of complete exhaustion!  Then that precious baby boy grew into a quick witted, stubborn, three-year-old boy with the added frustration of a speech delay.  As many of my friends are also learning, three-year-old boys are strange and difficult creatures.  And we had a second baby who was not quite the treat her older brother had been.  He rarely cried as an infant; she never stopped!  And as she’s grown she’s become the most precocious fire-cracker of a 16-month-old I’ve ever met.  I don’t think she realizes she’s 16-months-old; rather, I think she believes she’s 5, or maybe 13.  I love, love, love these children.  With everything that I am.  And yet, days when I can’t rest because every time I try they see some sign that reads “It’s time to jump all over mom time!”, or days when my little boy’s face is totally vacant while I try to explain to him why he can’t hit his sister or shove my library card in the DVD player and no form of discipline seems to get through to him, or days (or nights!)  when my little girl throws tantrum after tantrum after tantrum because she can’t do something her big brother can do or because she’s not getting her way I finally, really understand that sign in my mother’s kitchen.  They are enormous blessings and I wouldn’t trade them for anything.  They are also enormous challenges.  I know without a shadow of a doubt that God gave me honour of raising these particular children for a purpose.  He has big plans for their strong and busy personalities, and he believed that I could best prepare them for those big plans.  And I know that he will grant me the patience, and the strength, to deal with these blessings.  I also know I often fall short of the mark, that I run out of patience too soon and maybe some days I don’t give them enough of myself (though that may simply be guilty-mom-for-no-reason syndrome).   And I know that I’m not alone.  Not alone because my mother before me went through what I’m going through now; not alone because so many of my friends are going through the same daily struggles (and what a great source of comfort Facebook and other mom blogs have become as we all trudge through this adventure together!); not alone because God’s pouring out of strength and patience won’t run out so long as I continue to lean on him.  And I know that this has been little more than a mommy venting, but I hope it will maybe be a source of comfort and encouragement to friends (or strangers) who are finding themselves also needing to cry out for patience to endure their little blessings and need to hear that they aren’t alone in this either! 

Telling Jokes

You know your nearly non-vocal little boy has come a long way when knock-knock jokes have become a daily part of his “conversation”.  We’re assuming his older cousins must have taught the him the concept of the jokes, and he clearly doesn’t quite get it, but it’s totally hilarious.  Here’s an example:  Knock-Knock? Who There? Drew-Bug.  BLAH BLAH!!

Each joke, which he recites entirely by himself, ends with someone’s, or something’s, name and a loud “BLAH BLAH”.  We don’t know why.  Then he laughs hysterically and we can’t help but laugh with him!

Unfortunately, we have noticed a bit 0f a set-back.  His pronunciation continues to improve so much so that I’m not at all worried about his next assessment, which we should hear about soon.  However, he has started dropping words from sentences and replacing them with “hm” instead.  So “I want to go to the playground” becomes “Drew hm hm hm playground!”  Of course, it would still be pretty normal at this age for the entire sentence to only be “Drew wants go playground”, but because dropping the words is a new “symptom” it’s a bit concerning.  A friend who does some work with other children like Drew tells me that this issue is quite normal among children who have been in speech therapy and is usually simply because they’re trying to talk faster than their mouths can keep up.  I hope that’s all it is and that he will overcome it soon.

Jami-Lee is starting to talk more and more too.  Most of her speech is random babbling, but her inflection tells you exactly what she wants to say and almost daily she’ll blurt out something real.  Just yesterday she said “Shoe stuck!”  It’s not her first two-word combo.  She says “Yay, Drew” (who she simply calls “Do”) or “Where Drew?” or “What’s that?” all the time.  Most of what she says would probably be totally unrecognizable to people who aren’t used to hearing her chatter, but that’s pretty normal for a 16-month-old and we’re not at all concerned that she’ll have her brother’s difficulties.  In fact, the very fact that she babbles means she shouldn’t; Drew really never babbled at all.  I’ve never counted her vocabulary the way some parents do, but if I were to count all the words we’ve heard her say I think the number would easily be at least 20-30.  That’s pretty exciting for a Mommy who’s first dealt with a child who couldn’t talk.

Now if only I could teach them to clean and do chores.  They do help pick up their toys, but I can’t wait for the day they can take their turns washing dishes and mopping floors!

Big Update!

Okay, so I should have written this post weeks ago, but it’s “better late than never” right??  My only excuse is that our Summer has been so busy!  And, really, anyone with children will understand that it’s a completely valid excuse for some things being left at the wayside.

So here’s the big news not everyone has heard:  Drew’s Phonological Disorder has been upgraded from “severe” to “moderate”!!!  We knew that he had responded amazingly well to the speech therapy, but I was still a nervous wreck in the two weeks between his re-assessment and our last visit with his therapist before the Summer.  I was beyond elated when she told me the news!  She even went so far as to say that he’s on a “mild end of moderate right now”!  She explained/warned that one of two things would happen during his Summer break from regular therapy:

1. The months of careful practice would appear more and more in his daily speech (there is always a delay between practicing the new skills and sounds and their appearance in daily speech); or

2. He could possibly get lazy and revert to old speech patterns, which would simply mean that we would have to step up practice with him on our own.

She wasn’t really concerned that the second possibility would be a problem for him and it  certainly has not been.  In fact, having to stop and correct his speech is becoming more and more rare!  There are still a number of sounds and words he has difficulty with, and he does sometimes need to be reminded not to be lazy, but generally he’s doing very very well.  A number of people have even told us how elated they are to be able to have conversations with him, and it warms a mother’s heart to see her little boy talking when 8 months ago we didn’t know if this day would come.  We look forward to the days of frustration over difficult communication being long behind us!

The plan now is for him to have another re-assessment in either the Fall or Winter and his therapist expects that he will still need another block of therapy to work on the sounds and muscle movements that are still a problem.  So it may be a while again before there’s a new update!