Blessings

It is interesting that my blogs have all had themes.  It is more like story telling than the way I have journaled before. I am the most fun telling my stories of triumphs. Life's little blessing. Here are a list of recent blessings.

Ryan was in a car accident.  He wasn't paying attention and ran a red light. It was all his fault and his car was totaled.  Blessing? Yes! He will go to court next week and pay and ticket and our insurance will go up (once again) but he walked away without a scratch.  My husband went to the accident immediately (he was home and able to get there fast- another blessing). He has been in insurance for years and has worked in claims. Having seen many accidents and he was amazed, our son could have easily died in an accident that severe.

Lydia is 16 months old and not talking. Many people have told me not to worry and then proceed to tell some story about a child who remained silent until the age of 2 or 3 and then began to speak in sentences. I don't doubt their stories (well, not much) but my experiences with my own children have been very different. Five of my children have needed speech therapy. Three began as preschoolers and one was so severe that she went 3 times a week until she started first grade and still continued in school until she was 8 years old. Every sound for her was a struggle.  I spent hours every week taking her to appointments and working with her on a daily basis.  Things would have been even more difficult if we had not gotten her help at a young age.  I remember her first speaking part in a school play.  I sat in the back of the gym with tears streaming down my face because my child was on stage speaking and everyone in the room could understand her (blessing).  So, when one of my children aren't talking I worry.

 Last week I decided to try and move her development along on my own.  I remembered that the first thing the therapist did with Audrey was teach her the word "bubble" by blowing soap bubbles with her and only blowing more when she said the word. Her two brothers just older joined us in the bubble fun and showed her how to get mom to blow more by saying, "bubble". It worked!  Now, all I have to do is hold up the bottle and she will say it. Huge blessing!

The next approach I decided to take was to try and teach her some sign language.  I taught my 5-year old sign as an infant and at 6 months he could ask for milk. He began speaking younger than any of the rest and speaks very clearly and well. When my next son was slow to talk I decided to try the sign language with him. This child started signing and speaking simultaneously.  He is still a little difficult to understand but no so much so that I am concerned. I tried to show her the Baby Einstein DVDs but she wasn't interested. Off to the library I went to look for the Signing Time DVDs and to see if that would spark her interest. These videos use music and she loves music. The next morning after watching the video she brought me her cup. I asked her if she wanted something to drink. She signed "more, drink". Then at her brother's birthday party she pointed to the cake and signed "eat". She was asking for a piece. It isn't speech but it is an attempt at communication. Once again a blessing!

I went to a meeting to discuss my 8 year old son's progress with speech therapy at school.  He has improved greatly and I am glad but the schools are eager to push children out of the program as fast as possible and I think he still needed a little more help. I wasn't sure how I was going to keep them working with him since they had pretty much stopped doing anything  months ago.  This is when a good teacher came to the rescue. She arrived at the meeting with a list of problems she had seen and could show how this was affecting his school work.  They have agreed to keep him on and work with him 15 minutes a week. Blessing! Blessing! Blessing!