Sister
Oscar said “sister” today! It was more like “itur,” but it gets the job done. We were working on the sign for sister (there are two options; we use the one where you sign girl and then same). Oscar sort of touches his face and then puts his index fingers together (“same”) and while I was signing, I kept repeating “sister.” He picked right up on it as well! He now has over 20 words that he can say. He even repeated it on Skype for Grandma and Grandpa and they were able to understand him, too. The child is amazing.
Kuhgee, ugh and tee
Okay, maybe you didn’t get that title? Let me help you out a bit. Oscar threw me for a loop on Saturday when he gave me the greatest Christmas present ever. Not one, not two, but THREE – yes three! – brand spanking new words. All in about 45 minutes and all with the one common link that is almost guaranteed to keep my little guy trying to talk. Food. He is definitely my child.
We were lounging in bed late Saturday morning, which we almost never do, but I was exhausted because someone (you know who you are) lured me onto F@cebook and I stayed up far too late playing around there. Oscar crawled back into bed with me to tell me he was hungry (signing), so I asked him what he wanted to eat . . . “do you want scrambled eggs? can you say egg? I know you can say egg. . . “ You know, my standard drill, but for some reason something was different Saturday, and instead of pulling me toward the kitchen and grunting, he just looked at me with a sly smile and there it was – “ugh”. Egg!
Feeling a little cocky, I figured we would try for more. After some prompting, he gave me “kuhgee” (cookie) and when he was demanding to drink my tea, he came out with “tee.” After hearing the cheers in my bedroom for ughs, Nanny Norma joined us in the festivities, which I think helped in the motivation for saying cookie. Oscar is a bit of a ham and looooves the attention.
I’d love to say that he kept this up throughout the weekend, but we’re still stalled on the spontaneous speech front. He’ll say a few words (bye, ball, mama, no and oh no (when he’s scared; it’s really sad)) spontaneously, but usually his speech is just repetitive. But – he’s up to 22 words that he can say, which I think is awesome. The whole thing is really quite difficult, though. I’m starting to see why he doesn’t speak that much. It takes so much work to form a word. If I’m finding it mentally taxing, I can only imagine how difficult it is for him. He’s doing great, though. And even if we need to increase his signing ability to help us all on the communication front, I’m so happy each time I get to hear his sweet voice.
By the way, Kelley, thank you again (and again) for getting us started with signing last year. When Oscar went completely silent on me around the time he turned one and it seemed like he was never going to communicate, another mom of a little girl from Oscar’s orphanage encouraged me to start signing with him. I had thought the whole signing with infants thing was a little silly, but since I was scared he would never talk I thought I’d give it a try. He’s been signing for a long time now, but in the past six months or so it has become a truly effective means of communication in our house. I hate to think what our lives would be like if we had waited until Early Start suggested signing (in September of THIS year) to start doing it. Although I certainly hope we won’t face the same language issues with Baby Etta, we’ll be signing with her from the day we pick her up at the care center.
The Speech Thing
I’ve been a bit reticent to post about this, but I’ll let you in on a bit of a secret. Oscar has been talking. Well, sort of. He uses some words every once in a while. He has a vocabulary of about a dozen words now, including ball, bubble, bowl, up, hot, help, out, hat and apple. Most of the time he uses them it’s almost involuntary (i.e., he sees a ball and yells “ball”), but it’s still cause for celebration whenever it happens. He’s still not really using words volitionally (i.e., to tell me what he wants) very often, although on Saturday I almost fainted when he shoved his milk at me and said “hot”, meaning put some ice in this milk before you burn my tongue off, mom. It was the first time he had used words to actually convey an actual concept to me.
You’re probably sensing a lack of enthusiasm from me. Okay, you caught me. I don’t know if I was expecting some major language explosion or breakthrough when we started our three a week speech therapy sessions. I wasn’t letting myself think there was going to be some seminal moment when the floodgates broke and Oscar started talking, telling me everything he hadn’t been able to communicate before then. But you know how it is. You might not let yourself actively think something, but it’s there in the back of your mind. The other reason for my hesitation is that our speech therapist has planted another seed in my mind, and it’s called “apraxia.” Google it and you’ll find it’s not a happy word.
When Oscar was evaluated by oh so many therapists and doctors last summer they explained the difference between a speech delay and a speech disorder to me. They didn’t wrap it all up in a pretty bow and name it officially at that time, but they told me that his delay was likely caused by a disorder (meaning that he wasn’t just a “late talker”). I, like I do when anyone tells me something distressing about my boy (anyone remember my ability to ignore the fact that Oscar’s opthamologist was actually a neurologist for six months?), kind of ignored this label, thinking that they’d change their minds once the SLP flipped on whatever speech switch she knew how to trigger. Yes, I was hoping for some tricks or tools of the trade to be implemented. No, there haven’t been any.*
I guess what I’m finding is that there is not going to be an easy answer to this problem. Oscar has a definite issue getting his words out of his mouth. I can see it when he attempts to tell me something, and then just stops. I don’t know if it really is apraxia, but it’s more complicated than I had hoped. Before this fall I never had thought about all of the processes that have to occur simply to communicate, but a lot has to happen to convey a thought. And, if your brain did not have a chance to fully develop the nerves that link your right and left hemispheres together because of abject neglect for the first eight months of life, the ramifications can be pretty severe.
The upside of all of this therapy is that I have a better sense of what we need to do to help Oscar along. We’re also getting him to communicate more using sign language. He’s a signing machine these days. He “talks” throughout the day, but he really uses signs most of the day in order to get his thoughts across, like when he signs monkey he either wants a Curious George gummy candy (monkey candy) or to go for a walk (using his monkey backpack/leash). Every day he’ll say maybe one or two words, but that’s pretty much it. I’m not letting myself even go down the path yet that sign language will be his primary method of communication, but I know that possibility is out there, lurking.
I know some of you think that writing about these things is wrong. That I should keep matters like this private. To some (teensy tiny) degree I agree with you, but much like I did when I chose to write about my attachment issues, I think there are a lot more people dealing with developmental delays and the like than I had previously thought. I wish I had more to read about this than just the books I have to buy. That I could see it from the perspective of other moms in my situation. I hear the same sentiment in the email messages and the comments that parents post and ask to be kept unpublished. I also just don’t see that there is any reason to pretend this is not happening. I’m not ashamed of the fact that Oscar has a neurological issue that has caused this problem. I’m angry about the root of it, but I’m not ashamed of him or embarrassed of the subject matter. It’s just something else about him that makes him that much more unique.
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*For those of you with kids with sensory issues, one quite cool thing that our SLP uses is a plastic bin with either dried beans or a mix of lentils and rice for Oscar to play in. Oscar had some pretty severe sensory issues when we first met, and I actually had thought we had conquered them (wrong – he used to be avoidant and now is seeking). The amazing thing about these beans / rice / lentils is that they have somewhat of a calming effect on some kids. The first time she brought them out, Oscar went from running wild around his room, refusing to focus, to sitting quietly and playing with the beans. She whispered to me that sometimes kids actually sit in the bin and while she was saying it (and he could not have heard her) he sat down in them. He went from being his active little self to a calmer child instantly, and he started babbling after having been silent for hours. Don’t know how or why it works, but it does. We bought a big Tupperware container to house our beans that weekend.
REALLY Happy
He spoke! Oscar said a word, completely unprompted. We were in the kitchen and the oven was on. He walked by it and I looked down at him while he was signing “hot,” and all of a sudden he said “hot. . . hot” out loud. Clear as day – just like he says it all of the time or something. I got all excited and he started clapping for himself. If he only knew.
I doubt this is one of those breakthrough moments where everything is going to turn and we’ll find out that he actually has a vocabulary of 50 words that were dying to break through. I don’t care, though. I’m happy just knowing that he can actually think of words on his own and get them out. Or, at least one of them.
Troubling News
Two things I learned today. 1 – Oscar’s latest developmental tests put him at a 12-14 month range for expressive communication and 2 – Oscar can unbuckle any car seat – EVEN his five-point harness that is so tight I have difficulty undoing it. Which of these do you think bothers me?
For those who think this is a trick and both bother me, you’re wrong. I know we have a communication problem. We’re working on it and we’re going to even start speech therapy soon (finally found an opening). Thankfully, Oscar scored very well on the other aspects of the tests, including the cognitive ones, which means that whatever is going on in his brain is not impacting anything other than his speech (at least for the time being). Sorry, little guy, specialists have now confirmed that you understand what’s going on. I’m on to you. We’re even having more tests at the end of the month to confirm that these specialists know what they’re talking about.
This car seat problem, however, is HUGE. Really not happy about this. I’ve tried flipping the harness around, so he has to undo it upside down, if you know what I mean. He can easily do it. I’ve put him in a toddler seat, using the seat belt. Oddly, that one takes longer for him to undo, but he clicks out of it, too. I’m scrambling around baby stores to see if there is such a thing as an extra lock for a car seat. If I can’t find one I’m going to have to duct tape him into a seat. I don’t think that will go over well. For the time being, though, guess who’s not driving with the convertible top down?
C’mon
How happy does this toilet make you? Oscar loves this thing so much that he hugged it when I brought it into the bathroom while he was taking a bath. He climbed out of the tub (yes, he can do that on his own – can you imagine how happy this makes me?) and spent forever playing with it. So long that he ended up peeing on the floor, and not in the potty.
We’re going to spend some time getting used to this new addition, and reading our new books, before we embark on this new project. When I read the books to Oscar the other day he had a strange expression on his face, like, I know she’s up to something, and I’m sure I’m not into it.
Personally, I’m not in a huge rush with this potty training thing. Everyone tells me, though, that having two in diapers is a “nightmare.” Not sure whether that’s true, but I’ll give it a go.
Quiet Weekend
Thanks everyone for your input on my last post. I’m pretty sure the nighttime groaning is related to a growth spurt, mostly because he’s now eating like a maniac. We went to B*st*n Market yesterday and split a meal – I had about 1/3 of the chicken breast and he had two sides of mac & cheese and the bread. He absolutely inhaled it. In fact, when I put it in front of him, he actually sat down (which he never does at restaurants or whatever this constitutes) and put his face into the macaroni so he could get it into his mouth faster. And this was only 3 hours after he ate yogurt, cheerios, a banana and bacon. He ended up licking the plate and had dried (and gooey) cheese everywhere, including in his hair, ears and tear ducts. It was a sight to behold.
I have to say it was a bit unnerving, since I seem to forget just how far we as adults have evolved from the somewhat primitive state toddlers are in. The way he ate yesterday was practically primal. He saw what he wanted and he devoured it. No social niceties here. It also confirmed I have a way to go on the manners front. Whatever, the little guy had a good time. I sort of wished that I had had a camera to document it, but as I came home covered in cheese, too, perhaps that would not have been the wisest idea.
That was kind of it for our weekend, aside from a shopping trip, where he spent the entire time jabbering away. It was grey and a little misty in SF, so we ended up sprinting outside when it would stop “raining” to play a bit, and Oscar even made his first escape. I’m trying to get him to get in and out of the car on his own, now that we’re in such a tiny little thing. He’s great about getting in, but when I let him out and bent down to get my purse, he tried to make a break down the sidewalk. Luckily I’m still faster than him (for how long? I don’t know).
Our big breakthrough, though, is that Oscar spoke! Twice, even. He said “bah bah” (bye bye) to his therapist when she left on Thursday, and on Saturday when I was trying to get him to take a nap I said “night night, Oscar,” and he kept sucking down his milk for a sec, moved his cup away and looked straight at me and said “nih nih”. Of course, he didn’t take a nap, but I really didn’t care after that. Little steps.
NNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!
I did it. I’m not thrilled about it, and I’ve spent pretty much the entire day wondering if it was the right decision, but here it is. I had Oscar’s hair cut. Not even just a slight trim, but a full-blown cut. The “stylist” and I had a bit of a communication issue, which is bound to happen when a trip to the salon takes no more than 8 minutes total, but thankfully there was no bowl involved and he looks pretty darned good, with one little problem. He doesn’t look remotely like my child. Hopefully by tomorrow I’ll recognize him again, but for now I’m missing his curls. He, by the way, seems to be happier now that he’s not having to brush his hair out of his eyes anymore, but really, since when did this become about him?
I’m including pics of him on Saturday morning, which was the impetus of the salon trip (that and two weeks of Grandpa and Grandma “suggesting” it might be time – well, two weeks in person, they’ve thought it was time for many months now, pretty much since they got Skype). Anyhoo, here it is, including a bonus glamour shot of me working a polyester cape . . .
Nay, nay, nay
He spoke. Oscar was sitting in his high chair late yesterday afternoon waiting for his dinner, and when it appeared in front of him, he started shaking his head back and forth and said “nay, nay, nay, nay” repeatedly. I know it isn’t quite “no,” but perhaps he’s going to be a Member of Congress and he’s just practicing his no vote. Either way, it’s a word and he said it. I’m not exactly thinking this is going to break the log-jam, but we’ll take whatever we can these days.
It’s a start
Oscar has started to yell at the dogs. Nanny Norma tells the dogs to get out of the kitchen when she’s feeding Oscar. This is primarily because they circle the poor boy like vultures, waiting for any little morsel to drop. Max, the whippet, will even encroach to the point that he’ll surreptitiously lick the side of the plastic tray when she turns her back for a moment. Anyway, she points to the dining room door and says “doggies, out!” Well, apparently, Oscar has decided that he agrees with Norma, since he has taken to shooting his pointed hand towards the door and saying “da!” I take this to mean “doggies, out,” but of course, “da” could just as likely mean “hey, look over there,” “get me some yogurt, woman,” or “the square root of 16 is 4.” Either way, it looks to me like it’s an attempt at communication, so I’m all for it.
Speak
It’s starting to make me crazy that Oscar won’t talk. I’ve started obsessing about it, wondering what is causing this delay. Is it solely related to having been in an orphanage? Is it just a developmental delay? Is there a genetic component? What is a developmental delay, really? What does it all mean? Does he actually understand what we’re saying, but just can’t talk? How will it impact him in the future? Is there something I could be doing (or could have done) to change this situation?
As frustrating as it is, we’ve worked out a bizarre method of communication, composed of grunts, head shakes and leaning motions. It’s oddly effective. Oscar refuses to sign (even when he knows the sign) when he wants something. Instead, if I’m not already holding him, he’ll grunt so I pick him up, and then start leaning towards whatever it is that he wants. If I tell him to use his words or sound out the word I think he needs, he just grunts again and leans harder (if you know what I mean) towards the direction he wants to go. He’ll grunt again when I get where he wants to go, and if I pass it, he’ll shake his head and do his fake cry. If I give him something he doesn’t want, he’ll throw it off his tray or just away from himself. So, at least we have a method of communication, caveman-like though it is.
What gets me is how I’ve become so desperate to think he’s trying to say a word. Yesterday he was in his highchair saying “da”, and since the dogs were in the room, I was quick to believe he was trying to say “dog.” In reality, I suspect he was just saying “da.” “Ba,” “da,” “ma” and “ga” are his big sounds (like any infant). That’s pretty much it, and as much as I would like to believe that his “ma” is referring to me, I think I have to accept that sometimes “ma” is just ma.
waiting
