Zoe girl has finally, finally been diagnosed with a delay in her expressive speech.
I am elated.
I am elated because I suspected this.
All mothers know what is going on with their children before anyone else does and I knew Zoe was miserable because she couldn't communicate. She was whining and shrieking and pointing and grunting all of the time. She was working so hard to speak with me. She was locked in her own little head.
So, as soon as she had a significant enough delay to secure an Early Intervention Evaluation, I got one. And now she has help. Lots of it. And I couldn't be more relieved because now my sweet girl can come out into the world and talk to me. I know she will have a lot to say.
She will receive speech services once a week (maybe twice if I can get her enrolled in a pending Boston program). Next week, she visits her Otolaryngologist to see if the fluid in her ear (Otitis Media with Effusion) has caused any sort of hearing loss. Most likely, this kind of thing can be corrected with tubes. I would welcome that as well because it would give her such relief. Of course, I have been very busy reading and learning about Expressive Language Delay and Otitis Media and the connection between the two. I now understand that both problems are common, however, arriving at this understanding makes me angry. I don't like that it took me this long to get both the information I needed and the level of knowledge I required to adequately advocate for my daughter. Zoe could have had services months ago.
The thing is, I feel as if Zoe has a sort of bottleneck of all this speech that can't come out. She runs to get me and pulls me to what she wants me to see. She comes and gets me if she needs help. If she wants me to play. To watch. To hug her. To get her her milk or Lovey or any of seven gazillion other things. We had set up our own little method of communication. Because she can't say "mommy" without prompting, she would scream for me in this certain pitch that she knew I recognized and I would come to her rescue with whatever she needed. Sign language has been really helpful in alleviating some of these issues. She now knows "help" and "diaper" and "more" and "all done" and "milk" and "juice" and "play" and "hurt". We always accompany the signs with spoken word and it seems to be giving her some relief. Today she was trying to tell me that something was wrong with her toe and I knew I had finally identified the problem because she kept signing "all done" when I touched a specific spot. She was crying and signing "all done". You cry and say stop when someone is touching something that hurts. It helped me find her pain and fix it. That was incredibly liberating. We had a little conversation.
How frustrating must it be to know what is going on and know what you want to say and be physically unable to say it? Poor thing. She's stuck in a glass box.
Her language delay also seems to manifest itself in this constant crazy toddler stream of vivacity. She's now enrolled in gymnastics twice a week and is loving it. It really seems to help with her boredom and energy level. One day, because he didn't have school (Zoe goes to Gynastics two of the three mornings Zach is at Pre-K), Zachary came along and got so jealous of the cool foam pit and zip line that I enrolled him in a class too. I love when they do things together.
Zoe will be attending a preschool program for two mornings a week in the Fall (this is going hand in hand with her speech services as we feel that exposing her to talkers and other SLPs will be a big help to her). Zach will be attending Kindergarten at the same school. With all of this scheduling and their classes and trying to get a few million other things together, I haven't had the time (really, energy) to get my ass in front of the computer and write. I'm here now though and hope to be here more often again over the next few weeks.
But, if I'm not, please know that I'll be back.
Life is just moving as fast as this kid raps.
