Wishing and Waiting for Words

Wishing and Waiting for Words

I’m the proud mommy of a brave, daring, loving, happy, joyful, strong, bold, independent, funny, handsome, silly, adventurous, and sometimes even mean two-year old boy.  Bringing him into this world was not easy at all.  You can read all about his delivery here.  Ever since his birth day he has been doing everything in grand standard.

I am not sure when or how it happened but my little guy was ahead doing everything.  He was crawling early, he walked early trying to catch up to his older siblings, and he was climbing stairs like a pro by one.  At first it wasn’t even a big deal but once his cousin (who he did everything ahead of her although she is older than him) started chatting more and more my family started to ask – “What’s wrong with J.B?”  I know all kids are not the same and they grow and advance at their own pace so I tried not to be worried at all.  Then at his 18 month check up the doctor had us do a test to make sure he was progressing well and that’s when she told us he had a slight speech delay.  He was advance in all the other areas but slightly behind in his speech.  She recommended that we wait till he turned two to see if it improved and if we wanted we could contact a speech therapist.

His second birthday has come and gone and it seems like he is using even fewer words than he was at 18 months.  It’s so weird that the same boy who was saying teeeth at 11 months would now at two prefer to just scream and shout.  I keep saying that maybe he’s just not ready yet and he’ll start when he is ready.  He understands things we are telling him but he just doesn’t use words to communicate with us.  Like when he’s hungry he’ll go to the refrigerator and get the milk or juice and bring it to me, that’s his way of letting me know he’s hungry.  If there are left overs he’ll grab that himself and just eat cold pizza, chicken or fries.  So I’ve tried teaching him baby sign for ‘eat’ but he only uses that when he feels like it, which is very seldom.  He’s so stubborn and strong-willed that he does so much for himself instead of getting help from me.

When people first meet him they are always drawn to how active and fun he is but soon they notice he doesn’t talk much and then the proverbial question always seems to come up.  “What’s wrong with him?” “Why isn’t he talking?” or the one my family seems content on asking every time they see us “J.B when are you gonna start talking?”  I know that people don’t mean any harm but I automatically get defensive, I get upset and I want to protect my child.  There’s nothing wrong with him, he just isn’t ready to talk yet and when he does start talking he won’t stop.  Then I wonder if I say those things to make myself feel better.  Since I never experienced this with my first two children I am in virgin territory.  I know I didn’t do anything wrong but I keep thinking it could be something I missed, not to mention his chaotic delivery.  So I am just here wishing and waiting for words.

I know he’s smart, and capable of doing so much things in life, even without the words I can just see him achieving great things.  I keep thinking he’ll ending doing something adventurous since he likes to explore and seem so fearless at times.

Our next step is to start introducing speech therapy for early intervention and see how that goes.  Do you know any one who has ever dealt with this problem before?  Are you a parent of a child with a speech problem, if so what are some ways you deal with it?  How to handle comments from people who don’t understand?  I would love to hear some of your thoughts and suggestions so please leave me a comment.