Perspective

I don't think I've written about it here, but My Big Guy is in speech therapy.  When he was 2.5 years old he was barely stringing two syllables together.  He had a couple words, nothing really understandable if you didn't know him, BUT he had developed his own little sign language.  A pat on his head?  That meant "yes". Shaking his hand in front of his face was "no", two fists banging together was "music" and his index finger bending up and down was "play on the driveway" (I never said they made sense).  There were a bunch more too which meant we had no issues communicating, we just weren't doing it through speech.

There was a time when we were super worried about him, fearing autism or some other developmental disability because his eye contact wasn't great and he obviously wasn't where he should be speech-wise.  I remember getting ready for his 1.5 year old checkup and crying the whole way there worried that the doctor might see something that he wanted to investigate further.  

My Big Guy also had/had a large head.  A giant Polish head as I like to call it.  As a parent one of the worst things you can do is Google some fairly innocuous trait.  Turns out rapid head growth (which My Big Guy had) has a link with autism.  Knowing this, and knowing he wasn't speaking normally I seriously almost threw up on my way to the doctor's office because I was so scared and nervous and worried.  

Luckily our pediatrician wasn't concerned, and told us to wait for My Big Guy's speech to come in on its own.  My husband was a late talker too, so maybe it was just a family thing.  No reason for concern.  Phew.  I thanked him, finished up the appointment and returned to my car and cried again - this time with relief.   

We eventually enrolled My Big Guy in Early Intervention.  We wanted to start him preschool, and we knew something wasn't right and that he needed help.  He started weekly sessions with a speech therapist.  I can't put into words how grateful I am to that woman for everything she did for him.  In less than six months he went from barely saying two syllables together to saying crazy things like, "That's a triceratops, he has big horns."  Granted, he has a lisp, but he's speaking in full sentences and using semi-correct grammar most of the time.  When we started him in therapy in April he couldn't even say "Thomas".  "Triceratops" wasn't even a remote possibility, forget the whole sentence.  I will be forever thankful to our therapist for not only getting My Big Guy to talk more, but for getting him to WANT to talk more.  Now he will ask me what something is called, and repeat it after me.  He never did that before.  He didn't want to talk, he was fine with his little sign language.  Our therapist helped him in so many ways more than just saying words.  She helped him WANT to learn more, which is an amazing thing.  She opened up the world to him in a way that we couldn't and I can't explain how much that means to us.  

Since he's turned three, My Big Guy is now enrolled in Special Education speech therapy through our school district.  He goes once a week to a local school for a half an hour session with a new therapist who's working on getting him to slow down when he speaks (he has too much to say - I never thought it'd be possible!), talking without a lisp (although on a 3 year old it's sort of adorable), and just generally enunciating and pronouncing things more correctly.  

During this whole process people have kept telling me not to worry about the stigma of speech therapy, or Early Intervention, or Special Education.  

The thought never even crossed my mind, or my husband's mind.  All we thought was that our son needed help and this was the best way to get it for him.  I didn't care if it was called "Get Your Weird-Ass Kid Talking!", it was what he needed and we were going to do it for him and I didn't care what anyone thought.  I never realized that people might be judging us, or that other parents might be NOT enrolling their kids because they were afraid of what people might think.  This is what we needed to do, so we did it.  If someone thinks less of My Big Guy because he needed help screw them.  

What the whole thing really made me think about is really how lucky we are.  Getting a little help to get My Big Guy talking is nothing compared to what so many other parents go through on a daily basis.  A slight speech delay is nothing when you think about all the kids who are severely ill or disabled or who will just never live a "normal" life.  It made me truly appreciate what a miracle it is that we have two healthy boys.  We are so lucky, so blessed, and it changed the way I look at a lot of every day things.

When one of my kids is having a complete and total meltdown over something stupid, I try to stop and remember that there are people in the world who would give their right arm to have their kid screaming at them over something stupid.  Their kid might have passed away, or be sick, or have austism or anything that might prevent that kid from screaming about something stupid. We are lucky that our kids are able to scream at us, as crazy as that sounds.

I know it's cliche, and it's something I have a hard time with (I'm Polish and OCD, it's a rough combo) but I try to remind myself that the mess will still be there after my kids are asking for my attention.  I struggle with that one a lot, but I'm working on it.  People out there would do anything to be able to watch their kid go down a slide, or stand on a chair, or color a picture or make a train go.  I'm lucky to be able to watch mine do it.

Going through speech therapy has really just changed the way I look at raising my kids, and made me have a new perspective on everything.  Just one more thing to be grateful to our speech therapist for.