27 months old

Callum is now 27 months old.

He is more and more a real person everyday.

His newest thing is jumping. Daddy taught him how to jump and the way he does it is my new favorite thing in the world to watch. He just bends his knees down, then with a final pop he goes back up and straightens out his knees...without ever actually leaving the ground. He keeps his arms extended up, legitimately believing he is going to reach an object 6 feet about his head. I LOVE that blind belief that he can do it, that he is actually jumping and also that he is going to reach an object (ridiculously) far away. The day he does a real jump, my mama heart will break a little bit. I wish his unwavering belief in himself always stays with him, always thinking he can reach the ball 20 feet above his head in life.


He loves Spiderman. He loves spinning in circles. He loves dogs. He loves trains/cars/trucks. He loves running outside. He loves the children's museum. He loves putting our clothes over his head and walking around lauging. He loves running around the house naked. He can navigate on the tablet as well as I can. He likes running up and down the street, or being pushed in his little red car or the stroller. He just wants to run around stores and grab everyhing. He will pitch a fit and act like a little monster unless I bribe him with things throughout the store. He has more energy than the sun.

He has 0 interested in potty training, except to sometimes sit on the Elmo potty and flush the handle. If you ask him if he wants to sit on the potty he straight up shakes his head "No" (Ma, you are crazy!) He has no problem sitting in a diaper full of pee or poop, in fact, when he sees me coming to change him, he runs and fights me kicking and screaming. No idea what that's about other than maybe it hurts when I wipe his tush.

He is going through a separation anxiety/I WANT MY MOMMY stage. If someone talks to him, he panics and says "mamama!" while reaching for me to shield him from The Scaries. He takes my arm and makes me hold it across him in a very awkward position. Oh and by "someone" I mean anyone from a true stranger to his grandpa. He's also really sensitive and if someone tells him NO! (other than mommy and daddy) you have about a 75% chance he will burst into tears and cry for mama. Sometimes it gets to be a lot, having someone yelling for you and reaching for you all the time but I know it's a fleeting phase, and I really do cherish it.


Speech:
He has been in therapy since October, with a 6 week break after Christmas because his therapist was ill. He has made some progress but is still delayed. Last week his therapist called me to ask if we wanted to do 2 half hour sessions a week instead of 1 1-hour session. I think that will be better as well, because of attention span and to him, it'll be perceived as more frequently.

The SLP (speech language pathologist) also thinks he may have a motor planning issue. Which is different than just being delayed. When she told me that I cried, because I had images of kids with severe dyspraxia. He has NO issues with any motor skills though, besides speech. In fact, when he was evaluated by EI, he was above average in his gross and fine motor skills! He has 0 issues with any other forms of dyspraxia so if motor planning IS the issue, it's just the oromotor type. But still, you hate hearing anything is atypical with your child.

Background Lesson Time:

·         Ideomotor dyspraxia: Makes it hard to complete single-step motor tasks such as combing hair and waving goodbye.
·         Ideational dyspraxia: Makes it more difficult to perform a sequence of movements, like brushing teeth or making a bed.
·         Oromotor dyspraxia, also called verbal apraxia or apraxia of speech: Makes it difficult to coordinate muscle movements needed to pronounce words. Kids with dyspraxia may have speech that is slurred and difficult to understand because they’re unable to enunciate.
·         Constructional dyspraxia: Makes it harder to understand spatial relationships. Kids with this type of dyspraxia may have difficulty copying geometric drawings or using building blocks.[2]

Source

There is a lot of other info online about it. Some red flags his SLP noticed are his ability to say a word on his own but does NOT say it on command. He may say "train" when playing with some Thomas characters, but 3 hours later if you ask him to say "train" he just looks at you and basically ignores the request. We actually have always joked about this... he'll say a word and then never say it again. When he said "Linds" for Aunt Lindsay, he said it many times that night. I told her to enjoy it because she won't hear it again for a year. Sure enough...he hasn't really said that word again.

Another sign is high receptive language, which he has. He understands EVERYTHING everyone says. This was shown on his EI evaluation too as "high average" for receptive language. He also invents his own language. Again, my mom has commented that you'd think he had a twin because of his "fake talking" jargon. Which, jargon is a part of speech development and is totally normal and many speech delayed children continue to speak in jargon (for too long, instead of using real language). So using jargon alone isn't a sign of anything, except at this point, delayed speech. But he seriously sounds like he's talking - it's just not in English. He's animated, using his body to talk, telling stories...and I really think HE thinks we know what he's saying.


He also has trouble imitating sounds, he basically just says nothing OR using his usual sounds so for example, "more milk" sounds pretty much exactly like "Ma Ma" He also has invented a whole range of sounds and signs to communicate. For a drink he does this mouth sound, that makes him sound parched, like a dry "ha-ha." For the children's museum he does this adorable dance move (imitating when Sid The Science Kid exhibit was there, and he'd dance at it). For the tablet he makes a "Tsh" sound, imitating Spiderman shooting out his web, because he LOVES spiderman now and likes to watch him on the tablet. If you ask him if he's hungry he clucks his tongue...like a chicken. Because he LOVES chicken, and associated eating chicken with eating in general now. Dogs and trains are still a woo-woo sound, although sometimes he'll do a rudimentary "dahg" or "trn" for them, impromtu and never on command.

His SLP always says "he's so smart!" and I'm like yea yea, of course you are saying that to throw me a bone since my kid seems younger, slower, and less developed than other kids his age. She insists that he is smarter than average when compared to all the toddlers she sees, and told me it's not just to make me feel better. She said some of the kids who show "higher cognition skills," especially boys, tend to talk later. She doesn't know why, but it's just something she has seen many times. I hope that is the case with my little speech delayed genius.

He said "Ba-naa-na" clear as day at Wegman's 2 days ago in front of the banana display, and I have never been prouder, He's also been saying Nana for his grandmas, which works so I'm counting it.

Overall it is just hard having a speech delayed child. You think WHY WON"T THIS KID TALK!? ts not because anything is wrong - nothing mentally or physically. Sometimes I'm like whatever, he's 2, he'll talk eventually, some kids just talk later. And other times it's like this feeling of despair in your heart and desperation like omg my kid is Different and never going to speak and is behind his peers and has something Wrong with him.

The only 2 words he says on command are Mama and Dada. he says those CONSTANTLY. Which leads me to...

Easter:

Our family

Callum hugging his great-grandma Bea

Jumping with Aunt Alissa

Getting his Build-A-Bear from Grandpa Mark