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The Perils of Speech Therapy: Riddit, Riddit!

February 9, 2009

After months of incessant pointing and “eh! eh! eh!”, I couldn’t wait for Sacha to start speech therapy.

He has been working on bilabial sounds (insert childish snicker about the word bilabial here), specifically F.  Couple this with his love of pretending in the animal kingdom, and we get the following new edition of “Kids Say the Darndest Things”:

Sacha is leap-frog jumping around the house this weekend, saying “Riddit!  Riddit!”  Obviously, we know that he is pretending to be an animal, and while we are pretty sure which amphibian he is imitating, we thought we would give him the benefit of the doubt and ask:

Tony: Sacha, what are you?

Sacha: Fuck.

Tony (mouth aghast, trying to contain the inevitable laughter eruption): WHAT are you?

Sacha: FUCK!  Riddit! Riddit! (resumes hopping on all fours)

Then this morning, while watching Curious George, we hear Sacha exclaim “Oh! Fuck!” I am sure you can deduce what George was playing with on the show.

Now, I have the daunting task of bringing to extinction all frogs so that he never says this in public. Must also find a way to avoid him pretending he’s a frog in front of my grandmothers…oy vey.

Posted in boys, kids, kids say the darndest things | Tagged , , , | 12 Comments »

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Now 99% Puke-Free!

January 30, 2009

I rarely get sick.

Correction: when I am neither pregnant, nor nursing, I rarely get sick.  Somehow, when it is completely forbidden by all pharmacist-anal-husbands to consume any type of medicated relief, I get sick a lot. Mostly colds, but I’ve had rotovirus and some bad stomach flus.  And the traditional morning all-day half-pregnancy sickness.  But I digress.

When my kids get sick, I run to the rescue and become super-mom.  I ain’t scared of no puke!  And diahrrea?  I laugh at thee.  HAHAHA!

However, I am perpetually amazed at how much puke can come out of a 2 year old.  And how difficult it is to parent not only the sick 2-year old and soothe his needs while cleaning up puke before his baby brother starts splashing in it, but to also attend to the puke-splashing 8 month old who requires his regular daily does of mamalove and turning his riding car around when he hits the wall.

I did it alone for 7 hours.  I even managed to get them both down for naps at the same time. But the puke kept coming, and I started running out of rags and paper towels and clean jammies for the boy (having puked on all of them and refusing to wear regular clothing).

So at 4:00 pm, I called in reinforcements: my 83-year-old grandmother.  I asked her if she could come over, not to clean up puke (which had occurred 7 times by then) but to play with Kees so that I could clean up, rub Sacha’s back and head and try to settle him to sleep.

She came, she rocked it up. I got Sacha to sleep.  Victory…for now.

When she left for her dinner date, my mom came straight from work, in her scrubs and all, and helped more.

Finally, my pharmacist husband came home just before 7.  He took over Sacha’s care so I could get my Hippo to sleep (who will only go down for his favouritest mama of all time). I then scrubbed all the hard floors in the house and did about 5 loads of laundry to get rid of the puke smell.  Tony got Sacha to sleep and things seemed to calm down.  We even watched some television.  The puke came, I conquered it. The house was now vomitless.

Fast forward one hour: more puke.  In bed.  All over his PJs. In his hair. On the rug.

Screw it.  99% puke-free is good enough.

Posted in boys, health, kids, motherhood, parenting | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments »

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A dolphin is NOT a fish. Duh.

January 22, 2009

Sacha has now been in speech therapy for three weeks. He amazes me every time we go, not only with his progress but with his openness to do anything Lindsey (his therapist) asks him to do.  I cannot say the same for his attitude towards me – normally, his way of avoiding my demands requests is to wave and say “Bye, Mommy.”

Sacha’s session yesterday was no exception. Sacha was playing a fishing game where he used a little fishing rod and pulled out fish from a “pond”. When he’d pull one out, Lindsey would say “Sacha, this is a FISH. Can you say FISH?”  He would oblige by making his best attempt at an FFF sound, followed by something approximating ITCH.

At one point, Lindsey used the rod and caught a fish.  She asked him to say FISH. Sacha shook his head and kept saying “Non non non non.” She looked at him and again said “Sacha, this is a fish. Can you say fish?” He adamantly refused.

After a few repeated attempts on her part, he finally said “Non non. Daffin.” Lindsey said “What?” And Sacha pointed to the fish and said “Daffin.” She had caught a dolphin with her rod. She laughed at said “Yes, Sacha, it IS a dolphin!”
I friggin didn’t even know he knew what a dolphin was, let alone the word. God bless Finding Nemo ;)

Posted in boys, kids, kids say the darndest things | 9 Comments »

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Nostalgia

December 6, 2008

I set a little naked-bumed Kees up in his crib, sitting amidst a pile of pillows, and let him play with his crib aquarium. I then sat on the nursing chair, and watched the back of his head as he grabbed the toys, kissed the fish, and toddled from side to side, each time regaining his balance and squaring himself off to a proper sitting position. I watched him in silence until he turned around, remembered that I was there, and flashed me an ecstatic toothed grin. He turned around and resumed playing. And I resumed my motherly vigil.

I was not nostalgic when Sacha grew from an infant to a baby, from a toddler and into an opinionated two-year old. I remember being so anxious for him to be old enough to eat solids, big enough to sit on his own, and old enough to talk. Old enough to go to a sitter without screaming for his maman.

A second time mother is more educated in that respect.

Kees is already 6 months, and I miss him as a new-born infant. My sweet suckler who slept all the time, with his melodious hums and ahs as he sang himself to sleep.

Now, he has two teeth, and bites my shoulder when he gets excited. He rubs those little chewing implements on my breast when he nurses, testing out his new eating tools. He tackles his older brother, pulling his hair, kissing (or tasting, I’m not sure) his ears. He giggles at fart noises (his brother’s) and pulls the cat’s tail. He loves to read, especially “Where is Baby’s Belly Button?” with the large flaps to pull on and flip over time and again. At the end of the day, he nuzzles his head onto my shoulder when he’s tired, and calmly lets himself drift to dreamland.

I relish every minute of these sweet 6 month moments, because I know that soon enough, he, too, will be a terrible two, shaking his head “no” when I ask him to pick up his toys or stop dumping his crackers on the floor. He, too, may scream and throw a fit when I tell him that he cannot have anymore advent calendar chocolates. There are beautiful moments in Two-land, but I can wait.

I love my sweet Kees. Just as he is. Right now.

Kees - 6 months

Sweet Kisses

Posted in boys, kids, motherhood, photos | Tagged , , | 9 Comments »

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Severe

November 13, 2008

Everyone things that their child is a genius. Smart, at the very least.

So when I brought Sacha to be formally assessed by an SLP, I was expecting to hear things like “His non-verbal communication is making up for his lack of words” or “He’s just a little behind. It’s nothing to worry about.”

I was not expecting to read a diagnosis of:

  • Severely Delayed Expressive Language
  • Severe Phonological Delay

During the assessment, Sacha scored an age-appropriate standard score for receptive language. His expressive language, however, scored him in the second percentile. As in 2nd. As in 98% of children his age scored higher than him. His expressive language is the equivalent to that of a child aged 1 year 3 months. Sacha’s chronological age is 2 years 3 months.

It’s difficult, to say the least. To us, Sacha is a very smart boy. Seeing the words “severely delayed” when relating to our son is heart wrenching. I am asking myself how I could let this happen. Tony wants to know why Sacha is not vocalizing many phonemes. We read to him all the time. We speak to him all the time. He communicates with us in his round-about way. He has a fantastic memory, especially for details. He loves telling stories about things he sees, things he hears, games he plays, or crafts he makes. The only catch is that these stories are largely gestural and minimally vocal.

He can’t say oo, ay, aye (long i), eh, oh, or make any sounds that end in a consonant, or say his own name, his brother’s name, or the simplest words, such as eat or no, that he makes us guess in our eternal game of charades.

So we now play the waiting game for a block of speech therapy sessions to open up, always wondering what we could have done differently.

Posted in boys, health, kids, parenting | Tagged , , , | 13 Comments »

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Kees and the No-Hawk

October 26, 2008

After receiving many questions and comments (mostly from relatives or close friends) about Kees’s new do, and getting tired of hearing myself tell the story over and over, regardless of how humorous they thought it was, I decided to buzz it.

0

Sarah: 1

Faux-hawk: 0

Any questions?

Posted in boys, family, kids, motherhood, photos | Tagged , , , | 9 Comments »

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Onward, Potty Soldiers!

September 2, 2008

Since Sacha turned the big TWO last week, we have started thinking about potty training. I purchased a potty and placed it in the bathroom and waited for Sacha to figure it out on his own.  He’s a smart kid.  He can do it.

Sacha came to tell me “caca” (which he always does before or during a poop).  I asked him if he wanted to sit on his potty, and he did.  Unfortunately, by the time I put Kees down and got Sacha’s pants down and diaper off and socks off (as requested by the training two-year-old), he had already pooped.  BUT he insisted on sitting on the potty anyway.  He tapped his feet and kept checking in the pot to see if anything had happened.  Kees and I just sat next to him and played.  Then, Sacha looked down, then stood up and pointed in the potty.  I looked and saw…

PEE!  He actually peed in the potty!  Party time!  Kiss Kiss Hug Hug Pat on the Back I am SO Proud of YOU Have a Chocolate!

He later awoke from his nap with a dry diaper and insisted on sitting on the potty again to pee.  Which he did.  BOO YA!

I am the world’s best super-mom!  My kid can potty train himself!  Throw away all diapers, baby!  Penis on a mission coming through!

Then he peed in his diaper all afternoon.  And before his bath, in which he ALWAYS pees as soon as his toes touch the water, I asked him if he wanted to pee.  He placated me by sitting on the potty, but nothing.  So he got up, went into the tub, and peed there.

Must now dig diapers out of trash.

And order potty training books.

Onward, Potty Soldiers!

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If you are wondering where the hell I’ve been, I will tell you that I am “borrowing” my innerwebs from an unsuspecting kind neighbour.  It is not always stable or very strong.  On top of that, I am actually embracing what it means to blog “guilt-free” and loving it.

Posted in boys, family, kids, motherhood, parenting | Tagged , , | 6 Comments »

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