Speech Delay

My bug is getting so big.

Where has the time gone? Where has it disappeared to?

And why don’t I feel like I know my little girl as good as I should? Why do I look at her and think to myself that there’s so much in her life that I don’t know, that she can’t communicate to me.

There’s so much to HER and WHO she is that she can’t share with me. It’s so hard to see other kids her age that will ask me ‘why doesn’t she talk.’ It’s heartbreaking. It’s made more heartbreaking as they go on to have ENTIRE conversations with me. Or another kid. Or a teacher, or another parent. 
When I know I’m lucky if I get a few words strung together to make a pseudo sentence. It makes me worry for her.

I don’t want her to be an outcast, left to the sidelines by her inability to communicate. I don’t want her to burrow into her own little shell and give up. I look at her every day and realize how much she has grown, not physically (although she has!) but in the person that she is.  In her verbal skills. She has SO MANY words today compared to a year ago. She TRIES so much more than she ever did. 

But so much of it is difficult to understand to an outsider. So much of it isn’t clear enough that sometimes WE can’t figure it out. When we are out and about people love to say ‘hi’ to her. She’s a cute kid, and it seems like people love to try to talk to her. She typically looks at them and doesn’t say a word. Sometimes she’ll hide behind me, so sometimes people take it as shyness, the whole ‘don’t talk to strangers’ thing.

Other times not so much.

People will ask how old she is, and when I tell them ‘almost 4’ I get the look. The look like I’m somehow not doing enough to get her to talk. Even with prompting.

It’s even worse if they can see she’s wearing a diaper. Heaven forbid, WHY isn’t your 4 year old POTTY TRAINED!? I swear I can hear their internal dialogue.

‘You’re not doing enough.’

‘What kind of parent are you?’

‘You obviously haven’t tried everything in the book.

‘Just let her run around naked.’

Or ‘just put her in underwear’ or ‘put a pull up on over the underwear’

Like I haven’t tried everything. Like I haven’t attempted. Like I haven’t begged and pleaded and cried and thrown my own adult sized tantrum in hopes that she’ll Just. Do. It. But she won’t do it for me. I know that. She’ll do it in her own time, I just don’t know when that time is.

I read with her and try so hard to get her to repeat after me. Sometimes she will. Others not so much. 

I’ve tried bribing her to potty with Everything. Under. The. Sun. Seriously people, I TRY. But she has to want it too. She rolled late. She sat up late. She walked late. But she’s smart as a whip. I can see that. And to all those people that always said ‘she’ll talk in her own time and then you’ll wish she’d just stop.’ You know, the old adage of ‘we teach them to walk and talk so that we can spend the rest of their lives telling them to sit down and shut up.’

I hate that. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it. Do you know how badly I want to hear her voice say an ungarbled, fully understandable sentence? Do you know how badly I want to hear her tell me about her day? Do you know how badly I want to hear her ask the WHY questions over and over and over again until I want to rip my hair out??

Because that would mean my baby girl is communicating to me. That would mean I have a chance to get to know her and what her interests are, what she spends her day doing at daycare/preschool, who her favorite friend is and more importantly WHY that is. I don’t want to have to drag out of her that ‘yes’ she colored or ‘no’ she did not.

I want to know her sense of humor. Because I know it’s there, but I don’t get to hear it.

I want to know WHY she doesn’t want to take a bath tonight.

I want to know what makes her love ‘monkey’ so much.

I want to know what SHE wants for dinner tonight. Or lunch tomorrow. Or what kind of ice cream she wants at the ice cream shop. I want to hear her ask me why the sky is blue and the grass is green, and so many other things that I may or may not know the answer too.

I want to know my little girl more than I feel I do now.

And that feeling, that feeling of not knowing your 4 year old, is soul crushing and heart wrenching.

Update: I actually wrote this post almost a month ago, and felt it deserved to be published. The only change I made was the very first line where I originally said she was 'almost 4' so as not to confuse people after her birthday post. I felt it was important to post, but also to give a quick update. Bug has been wearing big girl underwear during the day for almost an entire week now. She still has accidents, but SHE wants to wear them, and has started to have near meltdowns when I try to put her in underwear. So I'm hoping that she's finally making the decision that she is ready, that it is time. She's going potty on the potty with no prompting at times and only a little prompting at others. We are changing daycare centers next week (hope to write about that later), and I'm hoping, hoping, hoping that we don't revert back to 'baby diapers' due to that change. I don't care that I'm doing a lot of extra laundry - anything to help get this girl in underwear full time :-)

Tough Weekend

K is gone 16 - 20 days a month.  So for this month, this was weekend number 2.  Luckily he'll be home this Friday night.

So, why was my weekend tough?  First of all, it was just one of those weekends.  I was tired and a little moody.  Maybe this is my body 'cycling' even though I still haven't started my PPAF.

The sleep issue's started a couple of weeks ago.  With Bug being sick, she just wasn't sleeping well.  Then it carried over after she got better.  Back to waking up anywhere from 2 to 4 times a night, and it would be a lot of her tears when she did wake.  I would try everything, and the only way to get her back down was to nurse her.

So, then last week she started eating less and less solids.  She typically loves her solids!  But she would take a bite or two then clamp her mouth shut tight and refuse.  Then crying would happen if I tried too hard to get her to eat them.

So, Friday night, poor Bug hardly slept.  So, Saturday morning started out early, and with me being exhausted to begin with.  She refused to eat ANY solids, and was just cranky in general.  At naptime she refused to go into her crib.  To the tune of screaming bloody murder ~ I can't believe no one called the cops it was so loud and angry!  This would even happen after I got her to sleep and then put her in the crib.  Finally, I just held her so that she would get a nap (after 30 or so mins of trying, and realizing that if I tried any longer she would decide that she wasn't gonna sleep anymore).  Same thing happened for the second nap of the day.  Lunch and dinner she again refused solids.  During all this time she wanted to nurse still, which is good.

By the time Saturday evening rolled around, after we went to mass, I was talking to K and was just an emotional wreck.  I don't have any friends really where I live as I haven't really had much of an opportunity to meet people after we moved.  So that ended up playing into everything and I ended up in tears.  K, who is the best hubby either, proceeded to get ahold of my best friend back home, C, and had her call me.  We talked for quite a long time, and I felt so much better afterwards.  It's just so tough when I'm tired and could use 30 mins of me time and K is gone, you know?

I don't want to complain, I wouldn't trade this for the world, and sometimes I feel bad when I let it get to me, after all we went through to get our miracle.  But I recognize that when you are in serious need of some sleep and me time, it can get a little overwhelming, and I think that's just what happened this weekend.

Add in that we are trying to get our house back home rented out, and in the meantime find a house here to rent and get out of an apartment.  The apartment was good at the time, but we need more space and a backyard for the dog.  So I'm trying to look on the weekends when K is gone because we only have until the end of June.  So, add in just one more stressor LOL.

Sunday was a duplicate of Saturday.  Up real early, didn't want to nap, didn't want to eat solids, etc.  Cranky.  Last night she was up every 2 hours.  Yep, my almost 9 month old decided it was time to be up every 2 hours again.  Then, since she was so tired, she decided to sleep in a little bit, til about 6:30, of course, on a day that I can't sleep in because I had to get ready for work!!

Sigh.  That's just how it goes somedays.  My mom is coming to visit us this weekend, which will be nice.  She wasn't going to come since K will be home, but this Thursday is my bday, and K and I thought having her here would allow us to go out and have a nice dinner, just the two of us.  Plus, we are in SERIOUS need of a new car, so she can go with us and watch Bug while we test drive.  Put it this way - when I bought this car I just KNEW that I would never be blessed with a baby.  So, I bought a 2 door, Honda Civic SI.  Fun car, I love it.  But, it's 2 doors, and TINY.  So, I am starting to struggle with back aches, and tennis elbow/carpal tunnel or something like pains in my arms from the way I have to twist and turn to get her in the car.  Which also means I still carry her in her heavy car seat, because otherwise I would have to put the car seat on the ground next to the car to put her in it, then put it back in the car.  Really, just not an ideal situation.  But, we finished our taxes yesterday and thankfully now will have a down payment!!

Well, gotta get back to work now.  Missing my Bug and can't wait to get home to see my crankster, so the quicker I can get stuff done the quicker I can get outta here!

~Emms