Summer in a Nut Shell

Hello bloggy friends!  Sorry I've been a little MIA, just got back from a trip to DC for the kiddo's week long speech camp.  It was a great, but exhausting week, and I'm so proud of E for working so hard to learn new words and learning how to put them into phrases.  Here's the kiddo after his graduation where he received a medal for all his hard work, with his speech therapist and the creator of the camp, Jodi Kumar.

Before that, I was participating in Camp NaNoWriMo.  This is the summertime version of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), where you can set your own writing count goals for the month of July.  I wrote a whole 5,746 words before camp.  Didn't have time to write during camp and haven't hit my writing groove yet, so I don't think I'll make the minimum goal of 10,000 words, but it's all good.  I knew realistically I couldn't make 10,000 words and was shooting for between 5-7,000 words.  I'm 5,746 words closer than I was, and I still have a few days to go... :)


Anyway, for my writerly bloggy friends, I wanted to make sure you are informed about WriteOnCon.  It's an awesome online conference for writers that'll take place August 13-14.  Check it out. :)


Oh, and anyone else excited about seeing Catching Fire?  The trailer is pretty awesome!!

So, how's your summer going?

Apraxia Awareness Day

My son loves trains!

Occasionally I mention in my posts that my oldest son has difficulty speaking and that he speaks mainly through sign language.  It's not something I talk about a lot here simply because the point of this blog was to focus on the things I enjoy: writing, reading, blogging, etc, and to connect with people online with similar interests.  But, as today is the first annual Apraxia Awareness Day, I figured why not share with you what it is my son and my entire family struggle with each day.  

My son has apraxia.  Here are a few facts about it, taken from apraxiadventures.com:

Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS) is a motor speech disorder.  Children with CAS have problems saying sounds, syllables, and words. This is not because of muscle weakness or paralysis. The brain has problems planning to move the body parts (e.g., lips, jaw, tongue) needed for speech. The child knows what he or she wants to say, but his/her brain has difficulty coordinating the muscle movements necessary to say those words. 

CAS is a low incidence disorder.  Best estimates suggest that about 1 in 1000 children (0.1%) of children are affected by CAS.

A child with CAS may also present with other motor planning deficits.  Oral apraxia indicates that a person has difficulty with volitional control of non-speech movement; ie, sticking out the tongue, puckering, smiling, blowing, licking. Limb apraxia refers to motor planning deficits relating to arms, legs, fingers, etc.  (It is suspected that my son has verbal, oral and limb apraxia and therefore goes to speech, physical and occupational therapy). 

Appropriate speech therapy for CAS is three times per week for 30-minute individual sessions.  As children improve and develop speech motor control over volitional utterances, frequency can be reduced accordingly, as long as they maintain and generalize improvements. 

Although appropriate treatment is intensive and takes place over a number of years, children with CAS are capable of making many gains and many are capable of developing intelligible speech.  Some children may have some minor differences in their speech, their intonation may not be perfect, or others may perceive some sort of accent. However, most children will speak in a way that others understand.

Hope you learned something today!  If you are interested in knowing more about my son's journey, our struggles and victories as he learns to speak, please check out my other blog: http://sweetapplesofgold.blogspot.com/

Happy Speech and Hearing Awareness Month!

Strengths and Weaknesses

A friend of mine sent me this video to encourage me.  As I've mentioned a few times before, my oldest son (who is almost three) struggles with speech.  It's an area that will be difficult for him for quite some time, and so in the meantime, we are working on teaching him sign language.  He picks up on new signs so quickly!  Before I had no idea what went on in that little head of his, but every day I'm getting a glimpse of the things he thinks about and notices, and it's awesome.

Anyway, this video really did inspire me and I hope you watch it and find inspiration as well.  When my son gets older I will definitely share it with him and hopefully it will encourage and inspire him as well. 

What a beautiful reminder that we all have weaknesses and areas where we struggle, but we also have strengths, areas where we can bless others with our gifts and talents!  

Some people have indicated they couldn't play the video.  If that's you, then here's the link to the video on youtube:       http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLdg9FMp7f8

Let's Get Personal...

*Disclaimer: This post is long and filled with me sharing honest life struggles.  Read at your own risk.*

I feel like I'm coming back.  Coming back to my passion and gifting of writing.  Coming back to being the mom, the wife, the person I need to be.  I don't know exactly where I went, but I know it had a lot to do with my role as mommy and the journey we've been on.  I feel compelled to share a journey I've been on with my son and hubster and God.  I kept it from my blog because I felt it was too personal.  But I really feel I need to share it.  Share what we've been going through and why it's impacted my writing and my faith and who I am.  And I hope that if there's anyone struggling with similar things with their kiddos, that they stumble across this post and find it helpful.

You see, my son (almost 20 months) has had a lot of obstacles in his short life.  Obstacles that have been time consuming, worrisome, and yet have molded me into a stronger mom, stronger woman, stronger Christian, and hopefully, a stronger writer.


Obstacle One:
When my son was born, a standard hearing test revealed a hearing loss in one ear.  We were told to bring him back in a month to see if perhaps it was temporary, just fluid in his ears, etc.  It wasn't.  Another referral to another doctor only confirmed he had a hearing loss.  They couldn't do anything until they determined how severe the loss was.  So we were referred to another specialist.  More confirmation he had a hearing loss in one ear but no further indication of it's severity.

Finally they recommended a sedated hearing test (ABR).  Before he was to be sedated (completely asleep) he needed a trip to the pediatrician two days before the sedation to clean his ears of wax and determine he was fit for sedation.  We scheduled his sedated test, I took him to his pediatrician and we were told due to fluid in his ear we had to reschedule the test.  A month later, we repeated the process.  No fluid, all was a go for the sedation.  But the morning of the sedation he had a cold and a fever and was therefore not able to be sedated.  Another month later, the same exact thing-another cold.

After three times, we felt like maybe this wasn't meant to be.  Back to the hearing specialist we went.  They did the test again, said there was nothing they could do, we had to do the sedated hearing test to get more information.

Fourth time was the charm.  He was an absolute champ with the IV, sedation, everything.  And finally, we were given the news.  He definitely had a hearing loss.  And it was severe.

That basically meant for the first year of his life he wasn't hearing much in that ear.  Luckily his other ear is working perfectly, but it was so frustrating to think he could have had a hearing aid so much sooner if we hadn't of had such a run-around with all these hearing tests, trips to audiologists and ENTs.  It wasn't until he was 15 months that the hearing aid was fitted and in.

I wasn't upset when I found out he was hearing impaired.  In fact, I don't even view him as such.  He's my lil monkey, my joy, one of the best things in my very blessed life.

Watching his favorite cartoon (with the remote, what a guy!) with his hearing aid in.

Obstacle Two:

My son still isn't talking.  He babbles but he doesn't say any words.  This could be due to the hearing loss, as he didn't babble much until after the hearing aid was in.  Or it could just be a normal speech delay amplified by the hearing loss.  Either way we do speech therapy bi-monthly through our Early Intervention services.  If your child or a child you knows has any kind of delay, call your state's Early Intervention services.  It's a free evaluation, in which they can help you give your child the services they need (speech, physical or occupational therapy, etc).   And you don't need a referral, so if you're concerned, just go.

Obstacle Three: 

When my son was little he would cry when we put him on his tummy.  Not just whine, but scream.  He hated being on his stomach.  He learned to roll from tummy to back quickly, but never rolled back to tummy.  He learned to sit on his own rather quickly, by 4 months.

By 9 months, he still wasn't rolling over back to tummy, nor was he making any attempts to move out of his sitting position.  His sit wasn't straight either, but like he was slightly hunched over as you can see in this photo.  I had asked the pediatrician about his physical development and my concerns multiple times, but they continually told me babies develop at different rates and that he'd catch up.  So at 9 months I put my foot down.  Told the pediatrician something was wrong.  Demanded they do something.  And they referred him to physical therapy and Early Intervention services.

Both have been life-savers.  Apparently, my son had a locked pelvis.  That meant that since babies these days spend so much time on their backs and sitting up, his pelvis was locked in those two positions.  His pelvis was probably already tight when he was born and worsened because he refused to be on his stomach.  When we laid him on his stomach his cries weren't because he hated Tummy Time.  It was because he was in pain.

The physical therapist (PT) told us if we hadn't come in before he was about a year, the locked pelvis could have become a permanent thing. He probably could have been in a wheelchair for life.

Weekly I took him in for physical therapy.  Our amazing PT did exercises and stretches on him that did not make him happy (in fact, he screamed for the majority of his first month or two of therapy) but immediately we could see results.  Instead of him always sitting in a curved posture, he could sit up straight.

Also, weekly, we went to the chiropractor, where she did manipulations on his back, hips, pelvis, and legs.

Within a month of PT and chiropractic care he was finally rolling over!  And just before his first birthday, he was finally on the move!  My boy was a crawler and life was good. :)

At this point we no longer needed chiropractic care, and went down to physical therapy every other week.  It was such a relief to have less appointments, both emotionally and financially.

He became such an expert crawler he didn't want to walk.  At 17 months he took his first tentative steps and I cried when both hubster and I witnessed it.  But immediately he returned to crawling, not attempting to walk again until he was 18 1/2 months.  Finally, at the beginning of his 19th month, he was walking exclusively!

Sometimes I get teary watching him walking around, a grin on his face as he discovers something new.  He's come a long way and I am so proud of him.

Below is a clip of him, after he'd only been walking ONE week.  I was so proud, but he was more impressed by the camera then strutting his stuff.

This concludes Part I of Let's Get Personal. In an effort to keep this post from being ridiculously long, please check out the next post, Let's Get Personal Part II.