Someone has been letting my son get away with some B.S. lately. Wylie’s language is, many experts tell me, “coming along just fine,” and I’m inclined to agree with the general consensus. The complex structure of sentences is eluding him, but he’s closing in, so to speak. He will string a few words together here and there, but I am most likely to hear a sentence in the form of a request, which is a program he is working on in school. He has been working on being polite, I guess, and “please” was added at the end of a standard “I want (blank)” recently. He was getting it perfect. “I want juice, please.” “I want Toy Story, please.” “I want upstairs, please.” Buahahaha. Gotta love the dog train method. Pretty darn polite 2 year old.
Except, at some point, he started saying “I want juice, bee bee.” Or maybe “baby.” I want juice, baby”? Bee bee or baby. Hard to tell. But it’s WRONG! And I tell him. I model. He stops listening at some point and repeats his own mistake. Okay, okay. Totally unfair. He had an ear infection. As did his mommy. Did you know something? They aint kidding when they say that stuff can significantly impair your hearing. People gave up on me. “WHA?” every few minutes. Felt like my head was sandwiched between two conch shells. I could hear the ocean!! Ugh. So I suppose his hearing could be bothering him, he could just be off his game from being sick, I don’t know. My suspicion, tho, is some therapist is mishearing him and allowing him to get away with that.
I don’t really know. My “super woman” routine is totally catching up to me. Yeah, I know, a little arrogant to even suggest my behavior could even remotely pass for a super woman routine, even if such routine was a farce. But I gotta say, I was riding a high for a while. Am I on solid ground? …Nah, but I’m young, and I’m getting there. Rocking the 2nd year back in college, a new promotion complete with little minions to do my bidding, all while doing the whole “motherhood” thing. Not even your average motherhood thing, I was like thrown into Advanced Placement Motherhood and told to sink or swim, and I actually learned to swim. Then, I dunno, all it took was a couple bad weeks and a bout of strep to turn me from an Honor-Roll-Student to Ah-Shit-I’m-Barely-Passing and from Ms.-Up-and-Comer to Ms.-Hardly-Reliable. And as far as Mother-of-the-Year? Umm… Can you guess what the chances are of me claiming THAT title any time soon?
I don’t have his damn notebook. It’s at school. I don’t know what little college student is letting him get away with “I want Cheetos, bee bee!” cuz I can’t see who keeps giving him 100% the day before someone else gives him a 0. And tonight sorta descended into some weird, twisted example of what would be a baaaad way to implement “No-no-show” as Wylie and I argued over every little thing he wanted tonight.
“I want toy, bee bee.”
“No. ‘I want toy, please.’”
“I want toy, bee b—”
“NO, ‘I want toy, please.’”
(Sobs)
“Well, Wylie—”
(Louder sobs)
“Shhh, hey. What do you want?”
“I want toy, bee bee?”
Ugh.
So, tomorrow I have off. I’ll drop him off at school and probably come back home and wrap up some of my coursework; the semester ends, in, well. Uh. Soon. A few days? A few weeks? I’ll pick him up in the afternoon and hopefully I’ll see his lead therapist; either way I’ll get his notebook. I’m not too worried about it in the grand scheme of things, but I think it’s probably good to be a little proactive.
I don’t know. In many ways, I worry less and less about him as time goes on. Yeah, I’m a mom, and I’m going to worry, but I have a lot of confidence in my son as I get to know him better and better as he grows up. And he’s just a little one, still. In other ways it is becoming clear I had some pretty high, possibly unrealistic expectations of where we would be a year from the beginning of our journey. I’ve had to face the fact that any “sink or swim” tactics in regards to my child will probably not work out as well as I would wish. He still has a lot of growing to do in his pre-preschool—the idea of just throwing him into a regular old preschool and not disclosing his diagnosis kinda seems silly at this point. Not absurd—but a little silly. I was having lunch with my dad the other day, with Wylie, and we talked about potty training. It’s kind of funny to think of the judgmental me from 2 years ago, snorting at the idea of a 3 year old in diapers. I expressed to my dad that I still thought I’d try again with Wylie after the holiday season, right around his 3rd birthday coming up. My dad—who is a “high expectations” kinda guy, but always rather reasonable about it—said, “I don’t know if he’s really ready. You could try.”
“You don’t think so?? He catches on pretty quick, don’t you think? He’s a smart cookie.”
“Yeah… but we’re still having communication issues, you know what I mean? He still has issues with his clothes. I don’t know if he’s ready. But yeah, I think you could try.”
I knew what he meant. Wylie is still a little behind. Still think we can conquer potty training, tho! One day. Eventually. Shooting for next year. Sometime.
All in all, things are okay over here. Life isn’t a rose garden, but then again, no one promised us one. (shrug)
He sounds smart, you have every reason to have confidence in him. He sounds similar to my son in some ways. One thing I did consciously when Harri needed extra guidance with his speech is correct him exactly like you dod, but dropped the 'no' at the front. I dont know why but it made a difference.
ReplyDeletetake care x
Aw, thanks for your encouragement. Yes... I should add I had this mean, sarcastic tone when I corrected him, as well, haha! But yes, I did what you said, and I talked to his teachers, and he is back to saying it correctly (although, anti-ABA'ers be smug, he sounds a little robotic, but I think he has to concentrate a bit on what he's trying to say, the dear). Progress isn't perfection but it's good!
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