Sometimes I wonder if other people see V the way that I see him.
When I look at my 2-year-old son, I see a child who is brimming with life - he exudes a vibrant aura of pure energy, has an almost insatiable curiosity about the world around him, and is already the kind of person who laughs and loves in a very big way.
Since early toddlerhood he's made an effort to communicate with us, trying to share the wonder that he sees in the world with his mama and papa, but it's been a long road (and a definite learning experience) for the three of us.
You see, my son has always been more of a doer than a talker - he hit all of his motor skill milestones ahead of time, but has never quite been able to catch up to his peers in terms of verbal communication. The 1-year mark came and went with little else than a few babbles, and it wasn't until he was 15 months old that he acquired his very first word. 5 more months passed in relative silence (he added only 10 or so words to his vocabulary during this time and didn't quite use them regularly), but at 20 months old he underwent his own version of a language explosion - at this point he began adding words to his verbal repertoire on a monthly basis and currently has upwards of 60 at last count.
However, it isn't quite enough. It frustrates V to no end that he can't properly communicate with us - he has no trouble understanding our verbal cues and commands, and finds ways of letting us know what he's thinking with gestures and one-word statements, but the complexity of his feelings is sometimes difficult for him to share with us. It's been my thought more than once that maybe our relationship would see some improvement if he were better able to express himself- I wouldn't need to shout to get his attention, he would be able to better understand my point of view and not push boundaries so much, we would be able to enjoy each other more and drive each other crazy so much less.
Our family practitioner agreed that a speech evaluation might be in V's best interest, so I went ahead and phoned in for an appointment. I was told that we would be put on a 6-month waiting list, but a little over a month after I placed the initial call, we were contacted and informed that there was an opening in mid-November. This past week, a few hours before we made a trip out to New Jersey to visit family, V underwent an evaluation by a speech therapist at a center a few miles away in York.
To be honest, part of me was unreasonably nervous that the results of his evaluation would somehow be a reflection of my parenting. I know that there are a lot of factors that go into speech and language delays, but it's hard not to feel like all eyes are on you when your child's development is not quite on par with other children their age.
Thankfully the speech pathologist who carried out the evaluation (we'll call her M from here on out) was very sweet, down-to-earth, and understanding of my concerns. When she stepped into the waiting room initially and asked to see V, he immediately hid under a row of chairs and refused to come out for a good three minutes - M didn't seem at all fazed, however, and patiently waited until he was ready to come out before leading us back to the examination room.
On the way there V had a mini meltdown - there were toys scattered along the hallway and his mood crashed hard when we told him that we couldn't stop to play with them - but eventually we reached the room and managed to get him inside. He was fine for the first minute or two, then he had another meltdown and asked to be picked up, all the while hiding his face into my shoulder. During this time M asked us various introductory questions - why we felt that an evaluation would be beneficial for V, if he had a history of medical issues or other developmental delays, whether or not I'd had a normal pregnancy.
Once V was a little calmer, she explained to us that the evaluation would consist of her interacting normally with him (showing him flash cards and pictures and asking him to point things out, using toys to get a better idea of his understanding of language) to assess his strengths and weaknesses. V, of course, is a raging tornado of energy once he's warmed up to a situation, so it wasn't long before he was ripping around the room tossing toys in every which direction, babbling nonsensically at the top of his lungs, and playing tug-of-war with M's clipboard.
We tried to contain him a few times, but M told us that it was fine for him to act normally around her (even as she was wrestling her pen away from him) and explained that this would help her get a better idea of his personality. As the evaluation went on, M mainly seemed concerned by V's behavior - she asked if there were ever any circumstances under which he was not constantly in movement, and pointed out that his need for continued stimulation seems to be a way for him to cope with the fact that he can't communicate effectively.
According to her evaluation, his receptive skills are spot-on for a child his age (which is something I've always known), but he isn't quite grasping the idea of expressing himself verbally. M also seemed concerned about V's tendency to speak in long strings of sentences that are mainly incoherent babble with one or two recognizable words mixed in - she said that it almost seemed like he'd created his own language and was having trouble grasping the concept that no one else understands what he's trying to say.
At the end of the evaluation, M told us that, in her professional opinion, V could definitely use speech therapy at least once a week. She explained that having a better understanding of language could help in other areas of his life - namely in his behavior, which she deemed "socially disruptive". Upon glancing at her clipboard, I also noticed that she'd jotted down, "Tendency for public tantrums" on a corner of the sheet.
Now, as thankful as I am for her input, this is where my uncertainty starts to set in - while I know that V is perhaps a bit more intense and spirited than other children his age, I never once considered his behavior "socially disruptive". What's more, up until that point, I'd actually been breathing an internal sigh of relief because I thought that V had been reasonably well-behaved during the evaluation (compared to what his real tantrums are like - those are monstrous, believe you me).
So I got around to thinking... do other people see my son and think of him as being that child? Do they watch him run and jump and screech giddily at the top of his lungs and wonder why I'm unable to control him? Do they judge my ability as a parent when he completely melts down in public, red-faced and wild-haired, screaming blindly through his tears and lashing out at me while I try my best to hold his near-convulsing body? Is any of this my fault?
During our trip to New Jersey this past week, the four of us stayed at my sister's new apartment for the first time. As such, V was busy darting around inspecting his new environment and, even though I asked her if she wanted me to try and calm him down, my sister assured me that there was no danger in letting him explore - after all, how much damage could a 2-year-old incur? No more than 10 minutes later, the sound of glass shattering made me jump half out of my skin - we raced down the hall to find that he'd managed to open the bathroom door and had somehow broken not one, but two containers (one was an expensive perfume bottle, the other was a jar of my sister's favorite lotion).
Even though she told me that it wasn't anyone's fault and that she'd clean up the mess, I saw that look on her face for a split second - the one that says, "Boy, am I glad I don't have to deal with this on a daily basis". I hate to admit it, but it hurts quite a bit when your child is the reason that someone else is glad for their childlessness.
I'm not sure where to go from here - I want to help V in any way that I can so I'm definitely going to start scheduling weekly speech therapy sessions for him, but I think I'm having a harder time processing my own feelings. It's hard to hear that your child's behavior is considered disruptive, even when it seems like a totally natural part of their personality, and right now I'm trying not to fall into the trap of thinking that somehow this is all my fault.
Maybe it is. Maybe it isn't. Maybe this isn't about me at all, and more about my son and what I can do to help him through the rough patches of toddlerhood. Whatever the case, I want him to know that he can always count on his mama, that no matter how often our personalities clash or how many power struggles we engage in I'm always going to be here for him, and that, to me, he's absolutely perfect just the way he is. I just wish that the rest of the world could see him the way that I do.
Image via CrunchBase
