Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Progress

Sometimes when foster children come into your home they are delayed in their development.

When you are in "survival mode" all the time your body, and mind can't develop normally.

As a result of some tough times there is a little three year old in our home who can't talk.

He makes ONE SOUND.

He is chatty by nature so we hear this sound all day long.

I talk to him and if he is asking for something I repeat the word to him and try to get him to say it to me.

But if I am busy I tend to tune this one sound out. (If I didn't I would go stark raving crazy.)

Last night I was giving him a bath.

He loves baths and he makes his "sound" constantly.

With lots of chuckling, and hand motions mixed in to let me know how happy he is.

I was not really listening to him, but suddenly I noticed something was different.

Instead of his "one sound" there were lots of little sounds.

It sounded a little like a cassette tape being played backward.

Very garbled, but he was trying SO HARD.

He was "talking."

Granted, I couldn't understand him, but at least he was trying.

I was so excited I snatched him out of the tub--wrapped a towel around him--and hauled him out to the living room.

"Listen!"  I yelled  "He's talking!" 

Progress is a beautiful thing!!!


4 comments:

  1. ANy progress is lovely:) sometimes I think in you and all this work you have (thought you love it!!) when I have the twins the 3 first months I work, work and work and love them of course, but after these moths I feel really they were mine!! (lol) was so busy at first to enjoyed them, OMG but after this we begin a relationship of mutual love each other, oh my babies:)))

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  2. I am excited & touched just from reading your story here! I can only imagine the joy that brought to you and your family. And, he is a blessed little boy to have foster parents who take joy in him!

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  3. haha...oh, that is so cute! Once he starts, he'll be talking up a storm! :)

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  4. I love this! Our youngest was four-and-a-half when he got here and we could understand only a little of his speech. When school started two months later, they re-evaled his IEP and said he no longer qualified for services because he had improved so much. I'm his eleventh mom. Instability and trauma can be so hard for our kiddos to survive, let alone thrive in. He still has major issues, but is so different from the combative, raging child whose barely intelligible vocabulary consisted of several versions of "no" and "I want you to die." And he tries SO hard every single day. I am immensely proud of him.

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