Sense of self

Dylan's burgeoning sense of self.

He knows who he is, even if he pronounces his name "Dy-n."

What's funny is that since being released from speech therapy, his word count and complexity have continued to grow by leaps and bounds. Still, some things he says are not so clear, like his name. But other times, he clearly articulates phrases like "Wake up Daddy" and "Ava: what the heck!" That one threw me for a loop tonight.

He's also clearly catching on to the verbal wackiness that ensues around here. We've always played this ridiculous game where we insert the sound "shhhh" into an otherwise normal sentence as if we really have something important to convey. It started out as a bedtime thing when one of us was trying to go to sleep and the other was piping up with some question or comment about the day. The sleepy one would finally say something like, "That's a great question. Let me check my shhhh!" As in, "Shush. I'm trying to sleep."

We did it with Ava too, and it has become an occasional bedtime game. Like, "Okay, it's time to lay down and put your head on your shhh!" or "Oh man, Ava what is all that in your hair?! It looks like you fell in shhhh!" Any permutation is guaranteed to elicit peals of laughter.

Recently, as we tucked Dylan in, he piped up, "Mommy: I said shhhh!" Whaaat?! His proclamations are so unexpected that they crack us up every time. This kid, like his sister, is a hilarious character in his own way and I love watching him develop.

Verbal breakthrough

Just a month into Dylan's six months of weekly speech therapy sessions, he's had quite the breakthrough. We're not sure if it's the therapy, the different approaches they suggested for our verbal interactions with him at home (putting things out of his reach to force him to ask for them, not guessing or aticulating for him, letting him lead the conversation, etc.), our increased emphasis on verbal interactions or if he was finally just ready, but the night before his therapy sesson, he said about 25-30 new words from a toddler "first words" book for the first time.

This was part of his therapy session. Saying something that he knows is incorrect has been a reliable way to get him talking, as the therapist does here.

He even added a new word during the session when the therapist blocked the tunnel on the train tracks he'd built: "Move!"

Since then, he's added even more words everyday, including the critical two and three-word sentences that the experts were concerned about him not using. Like last night when I was helping him wash his hands and showing him how to blow bubbles through his fingers. When I stopped, he said, "Make more bubbles!" He added the requisite "please" once I reminded him. Now he's regularly adding "please" and "thank you," which are musts for us.

A couple  days ago, Jason said Ava was dawdling as they tried to leave the house one morning and he sent Dylan back to get her while he loaded the car. He heard him march back into the house, track her down and say, "Ava: come on!"

He's picking up steam verbally and it's lovely to see. The therapist said he may not even need to continue the full six months if this progress continues. And best of all for me as a book lover: he now will not leave the house without one of his Thomas the Train books and asks for at least two every night before bed. We've come a long way. I can't wait to see what the spring and summer bring for him.

Grow, baby, grow

With all of my angst over Dylan's speech delay, I've been remiss in highlighting all the other awesome ways he's developing. He may not say much yet, but he is very physically capable and fearless when it comes to climbing, jumping and crawling at home or on the playground. Left to his own devices, he doesn't hesitate to head for the big kids' equipment and climb the ladders, bars and zip lines.

There's also his amazingly easy going personality. Not much ruffles this kid, other than having his beloved Thomas or other toys stripped from his grasp. This makes car trips with him a treat because once he's buckled in, you're ready to roll for at least two hours or more with hardly a peep from the back seat as he contents himself with watching the scenery fly by, listening to music, or in Dad's car, watching a DVD. Contrast that with Ava, who at times as a toddler punctuated even the short two and a half hour trip to Vancouver, BC with on-going screams of protest for being stuck in her seat, requiring multiple stops to give us all a break and rinse the blood from our ears. Kidding. But it was an ordeal.

Dylan does take after his sister in the music enjoyment area. Check out this little shimmy I caught as he played with a new microphone with built in beats Ava received for Christmas with some doll whose back story is that she's in a band. And since when did dolls need a back story or cover story? What are they, undercover operatives?

As we've started following the therapist's recommendation to repeat and enunciate more with Dylan, he's added a few more words: butterfly, thank you, juice and yes. Oh, and Ava. Or Ah-VA, as he puts it.

His vocab is growing right along with his body: we're in dire need of pants since he keeps growing out of his! He's currently in 3T as he's been since the fall, and is wearing the same size shoe as his 4 year old sister. A few people have asked if he and Ava are twins. The last time, as Dylan silently sized up the guy asking, Ava threw a protective arm around his shoulders and explained, "No, he's just my brother and he's still getting used to people."

See? Who needs words when you have a sister who's got your back?

Say what? Dylan's speech challenge

We are starting the process of helping our 25-month old son Dylan with some speech delays.  He is is still on the larger end of the size spectrum for his age (88th percentile) but is lagging behind a bit in speech for a two year old.


My gut (and my doctor) tell us it's nothing serious and most likely A) typical boy speech delay, and B) that he is suffering in comparison to his verbal juggernaut four year old sister Ava, who's never met a word or turn of phrase she didn't like and incorporate into her complex word flow.


And to be fair, he definitely excels in ways that she doesn't: he is very adept physically compared to where she was at the same age: he's been climbing and jumping off of stuff since he was 18-20 months old in a way that she didn't even start doing until she was nearly three.


He also is much more patient and persistant in trying to figure things out. When Ava struggles with something (a container she can't open, a toy that's stuck), it's only for a minute or two before the squeals of frustration begin and tears start welling up, followed by her throwing the thing to the groundn or across the room and/or stomping away or over to us for help.


In contrast, Dylan will sit quietly, making multiple attempts to figure out the thing that's posing a challenge. He may grunt in frustration, but he sticks to his exploration for several minutes until he figures it out or eventually brings it to me, holding it out for help with a questioning, "Ma. Ma. Ma!"


I remember Ava at a 21 months already saying the real names for me, Jason and my folks, in addition to nearly a hundred words. Dylan at 25 months only has about a dozen clearly spoken words: mama/Mommy, dada/Dad, Nana, papa, ball, bus, dog, book, cookie, no (of course), moon, Thomas (the train), sock.

Everything else gets pointed to, or he makes the sound for it rather than saying the word. Point to a duck in a book? Cack-cack (quack-quack). A cow? Moooo! A plane (engine sound).


However, as the doctor and therapist noted, he's not frustrated by his lack of expressive language (as the professionals describe it) because he clearly understands everything that's going on around him and is able to communicate his needs sufficiently through yes/no responses and pointing to get his needs met.


He also interacts with us and others in other ways. Over the summer, Ava asked me for a cheese stick but I was busy and told her she'd have to wait. A couple minutes later, I turned around to find that Dylan had heard this exchange and gone into the fridge, opened the drawer and brought his sister a cheese stick as requested. So clearly his hearing is fine, as are his comprehension skills.


We have probably enabled some of the delay. Words and communication are the lingua franca in our house, so we work hard to make sure we're really listening and hearing each other. The downside to that is that we probably communicate for him and are good at guessing what he wants and asking the right yes/no questions to quickly decipher his wants.


Seeing him opening the fridge, I ask, "What's up Dylan? Want something to drink?"
Dylan: (head shake no)
Me: "Want some yogurt?"
Dylan: (head shake no. Points to drawer.)
Me, rifling through drawer: "Want some grapes? Cheese stick? Turkey?"
Dylan: (shakes head yes at turkey and points to it.)
Me: "Okey doke. I'll put it in a bowl for you. Can you get in your seat?"

His doctor and speech therapist say we should instead play dumb and force him to articulate what he wants. Now, I get that that will help in the long run. But in the short run: how frustrating for both of us! That exchange probably takes 15 seconds. The playing dumb routine? What? 2-3 minutes? Some days, that's 2 minutes I'd rather devote to getting something else done, like dinner.

So this week we finally got in to see a speech therapist for an assessment. And it corroborated everything we've deduced: he can hear, he can understand, he's smart, we need to spend more time practicing and enunciating words with him, and he's just not ready to talk more expansively yet. But he's coming along, and we will help get him there.

Where Ava picked up language much more easily just from talking with us, interactions and books, Dylan will need a little more focused attention, which is underway by everyone in the family, including the grandparents who keep him several times each week.

Despite my earlier concerns, it's nice to have a to-do list for this challenge, a sense of a plan for overcoming it, and noticable results already. As always, I feel blessed to have the family support and medical and financial resources to give him the boost he needs to get over this small hurdle. Imagine lacking any of those things and how much stress that would create? My prayers go out to the many who face that exact reality.