Snow, school, and speech

We have no snow, the forecast says snow, but the clouds say no snow. I'm hoping the forecast gets more accurate as the day progresses.

My last post I mentioned that Linda called to say that Mr N would be going to the local preschool starting January 7, I called and left a voicemail to the school psychologist to get more information. He called on Friday to let us know what was going on. He has proposed that Mr N attend the local preschool and have an aide that is with him all day, the school would supply a special room for his therapies (I'm assuming speech and OT). He only discussed the possibility of getting an aide with Linda. She must not have understood that this is only a possible scenario at this time. The school psychologist is meeting with the local preschool in a couple of weeks, then will discuss the possibility with the board. So we still don't know where he will go or when or what he will be doing. Good times.

Onto the speech portion of today's post...I still consider Mr N to be non-verbal. While he does have an expanding vocabulary, he can't say his name, he can't tell us what he wants and needs, he struggles to communicate in any way.

Yesterday he fell asleep at 6:30pm, I though he was down for the night, but he woke up at 8:30 in obvious pain and distress. Words can not express how incredibly heart breaking it is to not know what is wrong with him. The pained cries make me sad, they make me angry. It is so incredibly unfair that my child is unable to tell me what hurts. We spent an hour taking turns holding him, standing up with him, sitting down with him, laying down with him, going upstairs, going down stairs, watching movies, trying to play his iPad, rubbing his tummy, massaging his legs and feet, just trying to provide enough comfort to end his pain. We finally determined that it must be gas because he started burping and tooting then the crying let up.

It was an hour long ordeal, not that long in the grand scheme of things. But in that hour I pondered many times how it is possible for a mere human to endure watching a child struggle in pain and how long they can handle such torment. I said to Daddy "I wish I could take his pain away" in his exhausted state he thought I said "I wish I could give you his pain". I mean I would in a heartbeat, but I was selflessly offering to take the pain myself.

I would love to be able to give my son the gift of speech, I would love to hear him tell imaginative stories like his sister. I would love to hear him jabber on and on about something I don't care about. I am quite proud of his accomplishments and progress, I just wish that talking wasn't so much work for him.

Once we got him calmed down after his rough waking, we turned in for the night, only he wasn't tired after his two hour nap. E fell asleep first, Mr N sweetly stroked her arm, kissed her cheek and pulled the blankets over her. Daddy fell asleep next, which left me to keep Mr N quiet. Then came a moment of excitement and joy, Mr N sneezed.  Mr N said "sorry". Unprompted, completely on his own said sorry. Those small things give me hope, give me joy, give me happiness. He said sorry for sneezing. It is brag worthy.

The spontaneous, unprompted, non-echolalia speech is the best. I feel like it's progress it is a tiny step in the right direction. He did another this morning, he brought me something and said "here". We've been working to get him to say "I want" or "I need" when he wants something. This has resulted in him bringing one of us the hotdogs and him saying "I need" I don't know if he gets it or if he is labeling them "I need". Sigh.

We are still working on counting, I'd like to hear him count to ten without help. Right now I have him watching Baby Einstein Numbers Nursery while I work on my blog. They count various objects several times throughout the movie. They were counting train cars, there were 5 of them. They said "one", "two" and then Mr N said "three" "four" before they did. I do think he is understanding the concept of counting. Once the movie is over I'll write down numbers and see if he recognizes numbers. He has a few counting games on his iPad, too, that I'm hoping to play with him today.