Dear Camden (20 month edition)

Dear Camden,

You're twenty months old today. Wow...just wow. You're marching right along to two years old, and quite honestly? I'm loving every minute of watching you grow up. Sure, there's something to be said for a snuggly newborn who falls asleep cradled against your chest. But in my opinion, there's something more to be said about a toddler who runs to you as fast as he can, arms wide open, and plants a big, wet kiss right smack on your lips.

At 20 months old, you:

• Have graduated from parallel play to truly interacting with other kids...namely, your cousin Will. It's so fun to watch you two together and catch glimpses of all the trouble you're going to make growing up down the street from each other. You two have gone from toddlers whose interaction was limited to fighting over toys to toddlers who run around chasing each other, squealing with laughter. I love watching this relationship blossom.
• Use 5 signs regularly (more, open, eat, dog, and go). You've just begun combining signs to form short sentences.
• Are still stuck at 6 teeth but you've been showing signs of teething for at least a month. I'm beginning to think you're the slowest teether in history.
• Can identify countless body parts: eyes, eyelashes, eyebrows, teeth, nose, hair, ears, bellybutton, and many more. You like to take turns pointing out various parts on other people, and then comparing them to your own parts.
• Can now climb up to the top of the playground by yourself and go down the slide all alone. You always look a little terrified during the actual sliding, but then you get right up and do it again when you're done.
• Jump to me in the pool and even went down the water slide (with me) once.
• Are still hesitant around new people, but your severe stranger anxiety is gone (no more tears around strangers).
• Sometimes laugh yourself to sleep at night.
• LOVE: your family, your pets, playing outside, riding on Nan and Pop's boat, playing at Lauren's house with your cousins, playing at Tricia's house in the playroom, the pool, reading books, Mickey Mouse, playing hide-and-seek, cars, trucks, planes, trains, and going to the playground.
• HATE: haircuts--with a passion. Having playtime interrupted for diaper changes. Being told it's time to come inside while playing outside. The doctor's office.

To sum up all of these bullet points, you're basically an adorable, loving, smart, and fun little guy. In fact, I tell you every day just how fun you are and just how much I love being your mom. There isn't a better job in the world; I'm sure of it.

Happy 20 months to my favorite little guy.

Love you lots,
Mommy

We've been matched!

Camden has officially been matched with a speech therapist. But it wasn't an easy process. I think I might've jinxed myself a tad by going on and on about how wonderful EI is in my last several posts. The road to getting matched with a therapist was more than a little bumpy.

So, when it's deemed that a child needs services, that child's service coordinator sends out a request for help to the agencies that they contract with. Camden's coordinator sent out a request to various speech therapists in the area and then we waited for a response. Typically, a few agencies will respond and then the parent gets to read through bios and choose the best match for their child. Typically, that's how it works. For us, not so much.

One agency responded to the request for a speech therapist for Camden. Yep- just one. The service coordinator sent me their website and info. I looked it over, hoping for the best since they were the only option. I really, really wanted to like them. I really, really tried to like them. But there was just an uneasiness in the pit of my stomach as I looked over their site: they're a brand new company (they've been in business for less than a year) and the therapist that would've been assigned to Camden just graduated from college. Like this past May. I know everyone has to start somewhere, but I was hoping for someone with at least a couple years of experience.

So I started doing some research on my own and basically turned into Camden's service coordinator myself. I  spent hours looking up various agencies in the area that take our insurance, and then checked to see if those agencies contracted with our local EI branch. Then I placed some phone calls. Within a day, I'd heard back from a fantastic, reputable agency that has an available therapist with over 11 years of (impressive) experience. They take our insurance. They are contracted with EI so we'll still get the very reduced rates. I have no idea why my service coordinator totally overlooked them.

I'm not typically a very take-charge type person. I'm a people pleaser and much more of an observer than an assertive type of person. It would've been easy for me to just resign myself to the fact that we'd have to go with the only agency that responded to our request. It would've been a lot less work for me and it would've allowed me to stay totally inside my comfort zone. But I can't stress enough how important it is to be an advocate for your child, even if speaking up isn't usually your thing (it's not mine!). Go with your gut and don't accept anything less than what you think your child deserves. Okay, I promise that's the end of my cheesy After School Special pep talk.

Camden should start his speech therapy in the next few weeks!

Speech Therapy Evaluation

Today we had our evaluation with the speech pathologist. My first thought upon opening the door and meeting her? She looks a lot like me! Probably just a weird coincidence (I seriously doubt "Kerri look-alike" was a qualification to evaluate Camden's speech) but I was hoping it would work in our favor to make Camden feel more comfortable. And it seemed to! Within a couple of minutes, he had warmed up to the pathologist and was laughing and playing cars with her.

The evaluation was pretty similar to Camden's developmental assessment a few weeks back: she played toys with him, asked him to perform certain tasks, listened as he "spoke", and asked me questions. At the conclusion of the evaluation, here are the things we discussed:

• Children who aren't speaking by Camden's age typically fall into two categories: those that have excellent receptive language and imitation skills (and these kids will almost always start talking on their own without intervention) and those who truly are in need of intervention to help push them along.
• Camden, however, doesn't fall neatly into either of those categories. Camden's receptive language skills are excellent-- well above average for his age. But he does not imitate. Correction: he will imitate any physical activity without hesitation (he copied the therapist when she knocked on a door, drank out of a cup, clapped, etc.) but he won't attempt to imitate any sound approximations (animal noises, "uh oh" sounds, etc.).
• Camden is, however, a great non-verbal communicator. She was impressed with his ability to sign, point, and use other gestures to get his point across. She also felt good about the fact that he is very vocal and has a decent variety of consonant sounds he can make and that he attemps to communicate with sounds when he looks at or points to something.
• Our family history is a red flag for speech concerns. My oldest nephew was previousy involved in speech therapy and another one of my nephews will be starting speech therapy in the fall. Neither of them were late talkers; their issues were/are related to pronounciation. Also, my grandfather had a very pronounced stutter. Obviously these speech issues are different from Camden's. However, according to the therapist, speech problems can have a strong genetic component, regardless of the particular way they present themselves.
• We scheduled a hearing test to rule out any hearing loss due to ear infections (he's only had two ear infections; I don't suspect any hearing loss) OR any difficulty hearing due to ear wax build up (Camden almost always has quite a bit of visible ear wax, regardless of how often I clean it out). 

Also? I finally spoke up about something that had been nagging me in the back of my mind for months. It's hard to ignore the fact that anytime you consult Dr. Google about late talkers, you'll find 50 pages devoted to autism. So, of course that worry crossed my mind from time to time, though I knew it wasn't entirely rational (me, worry?! How very unusual, I know!). Today, I decided to ask the speech pathologist about the connection between late talking and autism. She said that she looks for three things when considering whether a child might be autistic: delayed speech (duh), social skills, and repetitive play or behavior. She then reassured me that autism was not a concern at all in Camden's case. (Insert big sigh of relief from Crazy Mama here). (Sometimes I wish Dr. Google didn't exist.)

She then said that she was a little unsure how to proceed with Camden. He's at the very youngest age that they'd typically start speech therapy and some kids (particularly boys) do have their language explosions between 20-24 months old. But because of his lack of ability to imitate speech sounds coupled with our family history, she really felt like intervention would be a good idea before he's 2 years old. We ended up concluding that she'd give me a bunch of activities to work on with him at home (mostly focusing on imitation games rather than trying to get him to say words) and we'll complete the hearing test on July 29th. If, in 4 weeks, we don't feel that he's made any progress in imitating sounds (or adding words), we'll begin weekly speech therapy with a pathologist. I feel good about this plan because it gives me the tools I need to work with Camden and it gives Camden some more time to "bloom" if he is simply a natural late talker. But we also have the back-up plan of speech therapy that will definitely start before he's 2 years old (something I feel strongly about!) if we decide he still needs it in a month.

Have I mentioned how fabulous I think this program is lately? Seriously, they should pay me to be a spokeswoman.

We've Been Busy.

We've been keeping up with our regular outings: the pool, storytime at the library, various playground outings, and cul-de-sac playdates, but we've also added some new actvities into the mix.

My neighbor (also known as my sister's sister-in-law, but since that's a mouthful we'll go with her actual name: Tricia) is a former teacher who I've dubbed the Social Director of our neighborhood. Tricia has started hosting her very own storytime/craft time at her house, the first of which we attended last week. The older kids who attended (5-6 year olds) read the book If You Give a Moose a Muffin to the little kids, and then all of the kids helped make a variety of muffins: chocolate chip, lemon poppy seed, apple cinnamon, and, of course, the classic blueberry.

While the muffins baked, the older kids painted fireworks by blowing paint through straws. The two littlest kids, Camden and his 14-month-old cousin Will, dabbled in some nude finger painting instead. They both had similar reactions: they enjoyed the painting itself, but did not enjoy the mess it made of their hands.

The fun morning concluded with a muffin picnic on the playroom floor followed by a Bon Jovi dance party in Tricia's son's bedroom. These kids love themselves some Bon Jovi. Consequently, I have "Shot through the heart..." on a constant loop in my head.

********

Our Social Director also recently organized a trip to a kiddie amusement park in Burlington, NC-- about a 45 minute drive from where we live. We packed a picnic lunch and hit the road early one morning in a (failed) attempt to beat the heat. I was a little unsure how much Camden would be able to participate, but figured he'd enjoy being outside with his cousins and friends regardless.

To my surprise, Camden enjoyed riding with airplanes with his cousin, Will:

He also loved, loved, loved the train ride. You probably never would've guessed that by his expression:

Playgrounds and swings are always a hit, no matter the location.

And I'm pretty much in love with this picture. This is the crew: a mixture of cousins and friends who all look so much alike that we jokingly say that a stranger would never know which kid belonged to which parent.

My previous concerns about the degree to which Camden would be able to particate were unfounded; in fact, he participated so much that he ended the day like this:

And even though it was 90-something degrees and his sweaty cheek was sticking to my shoulder and carrying around a 23 pound sleeping lump is a lot different than carrying around a newborn sleeping lump, I loved this moment. There is just something so peaceful about a sleeping toddler.

It was a good day.

Celebrating the Fourth.

Fourth of July 2010...

And Fourth of July 2011. What a difference a year makes.

Actually, if we're going to get technical, we celebrated America's birthday on July 3rd this year. We packed up the car and headed an hour north to my parents' lake house, prepared for a day of sun, boating, tubing, cooking out, and fun.

When we arrived, though, my dad came out to the car to greet us and told us that my mom had completely thrown out her back about five minutes before our arrival. Poor thing had been running around excitedly preparing for us when it happened and then she was forced to spend the rest of the day alternating between the couch and the bed.

Seeing her in pain put a damper on everyone's moods, of course, but we still managed to squeeze in some fun. My dad was kind enough to take us out boating, which thrilled Camden to no end:

Think he's a tiny bit excited to be boating?

But then, five minutes later, Camden did something that he's never done before on the boat: he took a nap. He was sitting on my lap, and the heat of the sun and the gentle rocking of the boat just became too much. Next thing I knew, his head was slumped to the side and his breathing was slow and even.

 Out like a light.

He stayed asleep when we docked the boat and I carried him up to the marina. Laughter and noise filled the air as we walked along the busy marina filled with adults and children feeding fish, eating at picnic tables, playing games, and sunbathing on boats.

And then suddenly, just as quickly as he had dozed off, Camden was awake, jumping off my lap and yelling "Ba! Ba! Ba!" while pointing at every boat within a mile radius.

Using sign language to tell us he wants to see more boats.

After playing some cornhole, feeding gigantic catfish, and running around the marina with Pop, it was time to take a juice break with Daddy.

And then it was time to head back home to Nan. Thanks, Captain, for the fun trip:

"And I'm proud to be an American

Where at least I know I'm free

And I won't forget the men who died

Who gave that right to me."

Happy Birthday, America. And a big thank you to our Armed Forces- past and present- for your service and sacrifice.