Waiting...

I haven't written about this yet because for some reason it is hard for me to write about it, but I just made a telephone call and all of a sudden I knew I needed to record this part of of our lives right now, even though it breaks my heart as a mother.

My sweet Parker has done everything early...rolled over,crawled, walked at 9 months, could feed himself with a fork and spoon early, but I just kept waiting for that magical time when he was going to sing along with me at bedtime, or holler for his brother to come play or tell me his favorite food or say the character on his favorite tv show...but we are still waiting because these things haven't happened yet. It's not that he doesn't talk, Parker says "momma" constantly and I have to say it the most beautiful sound I hear everyday. And he says, "grr" for my mom and he has said "dada" and "palpaw" and a few other words, but then they seem to disappear and we only hear them every now and then. For the most part the only two consonant sounds we hear from Parker are /m/ and /g/. I tried not to be too concerned, but I have been since just before he was 18 months. Brad kept telling me I was freaking out over nothing, but then he started to be notice it too.

Parker has been to the audiologist twice now. They have said that there may be minimal hearing loss...maybe. They did notice what we noticed- he seems to have trouble locating sounds- he will be alerted by the sound, but can't determine the direction of the sound. Dr. Cote noticed that he follows instructions and understands vocabulary, though he doesn't use it himself. We have the option of having a more extensive hearing test done, but it won't be until December and we are just not sure since it will mean that he has to be under anesthesia again and I am just not comfortable with doing that if it is not absolutely necessary. And if it just going to show no hearing loss or minimal it won't change our route at this point anyway. Dr. Cote suggested we contact Babies Can't Wait for speech therapy, so that was my phone call today. It sounds like it could take a little while to get it going, but I am hopeful that it can help. So that is where we are now...waiting to hear back from Babies Can't Wait, waiting to decide on an invasive test, waiting to hear Parker tell me his favorite color, his favorite food, his favorite toy...just waiting.