To Say A Few

I can't believe I haven't written in my blog in two weeks! Wow! I can promise you that I will try to write more, but with work and home life it has been quite busy for me lately. I am sure every Mom has those days/weeks where life is hectic and seemingly can't do everything you want all in one day. I haven't abandoned the blog. I just took a hiatus so I can play catch up. Now for the actual topic of my post for today...speech.

My two year old son does not speak all that much. He does say words here and there. He is learning slowly but surely. The kid knows what you are saying to him but chooses not to voice it. I half laugh it off as him being stubborn because both his parents are very stubborn and then the other half of me worries a bit on his vocabulary skills.

I was the kid that took speech therapy years before I entered public school and still had speech therapy through half of my elementary years. More or less I had speech problems because of my inability to hear correctly with all the ear infections I had. Once I began to hear correctly I found all sorts of noise so fascinating and was easily distracted. Imagine never hearing birds chirp, the pitter patter of people walking down hallways or water running. To this day I still have hiccups on on speech because I'll mispronounce words every so often. I can't say Red Wings (thank god I am a Caps fan) without thinking about it as it because if I say it too fast it comes out as Wed Rings. I often mumble too as its something I did frequently during my childhood because I didn't want to talk too loudly because usually when you can't hear you shout, so I tried talking "quietly". I say all this to give you my fear of why I am sensitive and very aware of my son's lack of speech.

This week I went for my son's two year old well check up. He was a CHAMP! Typically he used to cry even before we reached the waiting room as he remembered the building. My husband and I took him to to give him that extra added support along with his pal Grovies (a Grover doll). Height measured great 34". Weight was also great 28lbs. Then it came time for the doc to ask us if we have any concerns. Obviously we noted the speech was something we were a bit concerned about. The boyish middle aged looking doc took one look and told us to take the paci out of his mouth. He advised us at this age unless we want to live in complete torture for a month to not take it away cold turkey and wait until he is three. He said the pacifier prevents him from speaking or wanting to speak. He also said if we want to we could try doing the speech therapy with him but be advised they will first tell us the same exact thing about the pacifier. He indicated that taking the pacifier out will greatly change his speech habits and even if we take him to speech therapy and see a huge difference, it could be all because of the lack of pacifier.

So my husband and I decided on a new course of action to take with our little guy, less paci and more talking. If he doesn't pick up his speech with this change in a few months then we will look into the speech therapy. So far less pacifier has worked fairly well. Yesterday he went for six hours (from the time I picked him up until bed time) without his beloved paci. That is a HUGE milestone in our household. And what do you know? He was babbling the entire time. I think he's on the verge of talking. If I sing the first verse to the song Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, he will sing the tune of the song in his own little words (we call it his ewok language).

He's trying and we're trying. I am sure before long this will be a thing of the past. So the key thing for all you parents out there wondering why your child isn't speaking is to ask yourself, "Does he have a pacifier in his mouth?"