New Words!

So, in the past few days Jesse has learned two new words! He now says "baby" and "no." It's so adorable when he says "baby" and not quite so adorable when he says "no" but I'll take it anyways.

I know this isn't they typical brag of a mama of a two-year-old, but language has been a HUGE challenge for Jesse. Jesse had about 10-12 words by his first birthday. Then, between the ages of 13 and 15 months, he lost all but a couple of them. A couple of times he'd say a new word and then never say it again. At my cousin's wedding last August, Jesse said "dancing" twice (in context!) but then never said it again. He also said "kisses" around the same time, but hasn't since. This past Christmas while my parents were visiting Jesse went from saying around 5 words to about 10, but then lost them again after they left.

This pattern of language growth and regression was the big sign that tipped me off about 10 months ago that something just wasn't right. Of course everyone assured me that Jesse was just a mover, not a talker and that a lot of boys talk later. Our family doctor sent the referral to the development team at the Janeway just to reassure me. But then other issues were being dealt with (particularly Jesse's heel cord contracture) and the speech thing was no longer our number one concern. We DID get in to see a private speech therapist (the wait for one of the Janeway's speech therapist is about 14 months...we're still waiting) and she did an assessment and gave me a bunch of suggestions on how to help encourage language development. But they didn't help. For the longest time I felt like I wasn't doing it right or talking to him enough or I was doing something wrong. I still feel that way a lot of the time, but at least now I KNOW that there's something going on other than just a speech delay. And I know that I don't have the knowledge or skills to deal with it on my own.

Pretty soon Jesse will be getting consistent, intensive in-home therapy to help him learn to talk and to work on his other issues. For right now though, I'm going to celebrate these new words and hope they don't disappear.