Mrssavageangel’s been a bit quiet of late (unless you’re over with us on Facebook, then you’d know she never shuts the hell up!) It’s not that I don’t have 100 things I want to talk about, it’s just knowing how to, or when to, or even, well just, too.
Things are all a bit crazy over at Casa Del Savage at the mo. We’ve completely emptied our bedroom, so it can be gutted and redone (which I tell you is harder than moving, particularly when you have little space to move everything into!). It’ll be lovely when it’s done, but boy is the process painful. For me anyway. Moving all the furniture set my gallbladder off again. Thankfully it seems to have gone back to sleep again now, but it’s made me painfully (pun intended!) aware that I wont be able to put off having the bugger removed forever. I will until it’s unbearable though!
Then there’s been some movement on Oscar’s speech. While he does has a handful of words, it really is too few to be particularly useful to him in everyday life (Din au or rrrrrr* anyone?) and that’s the reason the HV has referred him to speech and language. We’ve also got a hearing check on 29th August just to be on the safe side. I’m pretty sure he can hear, but I am interested to see if he can hear everything (all frequencies, all sounds etc). I’m not looking forward to the tests. It’s asking a lot of a 2.5 year old to sit still for what he sees as no discernible reason. Ahh well. So anyway yes we’ve been referred for speech therapy, but I’m hearing the wait is really long. Even the HV didn’t seem optimistic as to when we’d get an appointment. Which pretty much sucks. And pretty much means I’m on my own if I want to help him. A couple of friends with an interest in communication have given me some ideas to try surrounding visual aids and another a book on learning through play. But the things that bind all the ideas seem to be simplicity, patience and PERSEVERANCE. Which is why it’s so draining I guess.
His behaviour’s been a little up and down of late, some days beyond tiring, some days angelic. But do you know, the more I look at everything he does, in terms of him attempting to communicate, the more I see. And the more understanding (and patient) I can try to be. I’ve taken to explaining where we’re going and how I expect him to behave at these places before we go out and that’s working wonders. And when he is cross or upset or frustrated I try to talk him through the outrage. I am also learning to see when he really has had enough, usually linked to him being too tired to keep the frustration reigned in. Take yesterday for example. We went the Hen House and he had a whale of a time, playing both alone and with other children. Earlier in the afternoon he was happy to share the roundabout with our friend’s daughter Elsa and watching them giggling together was just awesome. However towards the end of the afternoon, when asked to share the same toy, in exactly the same way with Elsa, he was having none of it. He didn’t get cross just would not let her get on. It was then I knew it was time to leave. So we did and despite small initial protestations, once he was in the buggy nibbling a cheese sarnie he seemed positively grateful.
Taking this approach is making me see him in a whole different light. I was worried what other parents might think or say if they saw me taking this (what some might perceive as) softly softly approach, but actually, do you know what:
1) fuck ’em
and
2) if you have a child that doesn’t needs this kind of eagle eyed understanding and can tell you straight up what’s going on then that’s great. Mine can’t
It’s quite a big thing to admit, to yourself more than anyone, that your child might need something (even slightly) different than the norm. But admitting it and running with, whilst it’s the hardest part, is the best thing you can do.
Pass me those Nikes will you – I’ve got running to do!
*Dinosaur Grrrrrr if you didn’t guess 😉
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