spoken words.

I've put off this post for a while now, mainly because I don't know what I want to say. I think I'll start off by saying that I have the greatest kids in the world (as one of them screams at me because I took away his coveted Peter Pan doll) and parenting is the hardest job ever.
Every week I get those lovely little emails outlining my kids' developmental milestones.  I read books.  I research child development. I take them to well child checks.  And I watch them grow.  Each in their own little way.
But then one day I started to wonder.  I had just taken Lucy to her 18 month check up and realized as I was filling out another screening form that in the "communication" section she wasn't hitting every milestone.  No big deal, she was still fine.
Another week went by and I then noticed she stopped saying words she had earlier spoken and wasn't really saying any new words. She completely understood (and still does) everything we said, followed directions and commands and "communicated" just fine non-verbally.  But, I wanted to hear more out of that sweet little mouth!
So I decided to call Early Intervention Services and have her evaluated.  Nothing like having 2 people come to your house to test your 19 month old on her social, emotional, physical and verbal skills.  I was obviously more nervous than Lucy was.  Of course, my little girl was amazing and charmed the pants off them. She smiled, ran around with her baby doll and "answered" each of their little test questions almost perfectly.  But, she still didn't say much.  After an hour they tallied up their test results and gave us the news.  Our daughter was a quiet genius!  There were no physical or social concerns but expressive language was delayed. She tested at a 4 year old level for cognitive understanding but because she was really only saying about 2 words (mama and uh oh) she was at a 10 month old level and would need to begin speech therapy.
Now, I realize as I type this it's really not that big of a deal.  It's just a little help in one tiny area of her big world that we are treating early and will move on.  But for me it's all been a bit overwhelming.  A few days later we received a letter from the Division of Developmental Disabilities essentially labeling her with a speech disorder.  Ugh. I hate labels.
The good news is it's only been 2 weeks and 1 therapy session and she is improving greatly.  We have already learned so many great skills to use to help her communicate with us.  Matt is taking a 3 month night class on speech techniques, we are reading books and weekly in-home speech therapy should get her back on track.
Of course, it's never just a simple issue with one child.  Carter wanted some speech help too.  :)
For the past few months we've noticed Carter has a hard time pronouncing common words (more than just your average child at 3 years old). After the SLP heard him talk when she visited Lucy and speaking to a few other SLP friends, they all encouraged he get evaluated as well.  I've seen a few kids at parks make fun of him for not saying his name "right" and it pretty much broke my heart. So I'm now busy working with the school district to get him weekly services, researching articles, tips, books, anything I can to help both kids and somehow juggling our normal everyday lives.
I'll say it again. I'm overwhelmed. I'm the pregnancy and baby expert at work.  I don't know much about speech.  This is a whole new area I have suddenly found myself in and although many of the tips seem like common sense, they are thoughtful, well-studied techniques to help both kids. And there is a lot to learn.
I'm so thankful it's this and not something worse.  But for us, right now, it's a lot. We can only encourage them along the way and wait for them to talk on their own, perfect schedule. In the meantime I've learned to appreciate the simple activities during the day and to slow down.  It's been so good for me to really sit down and concentrate on their activities, slow down and focus, watch their actions and show real interest.  It's often easier for me to see them happily playing quietly and go unload the dishwasher or fold some laundry but creating little teachable moments throughout the day is teaching me more about them, which has been the greatest blessing of all.
So, speech therapy....here we come!