Discouraging Day

I so often write about Tucker's victories with language, and today I feel the need to share my heart in another way: I am discouraged.

Tucker has hit a new level of frustration, and language seems to make him so very angry sometimes. Before he had signs, he could become so easily angered when he wanted something and didn't know how to ask for it. Now he has dozens of signs, and he uses them freely, but it's not enough anymore. I think he wants to go to the next level.

I really feel like we are on the cusp of a language breakthrough... if we can somehow teach him how to turn on his voice, I think words will just start falling out of his mouth. He's so close, but so frustrated.

We talked a lot about this during speech therapy this week, as Nicole noticed his frustration as well. She is trying so many strategies to help him find his voice, and we will continue to practice everything she sends our way. She suggested that I scale things back a bit, and stop asking him to say things. That was working for a while, and he was enjoying the games of learning new sounds and trying new words. But now, it only agitates him. So she suggested that I continue to model the strategies, play the word games he knows, and practice, pracitce, practice.

It felt like a bit of a setback, even though it may not be. It just felt like one, to realize I should stop asking him to move forward. Even though it seems easy to me, and I know he is capable of making the O sound to ask me to open his yogurt, it is hard for him. I don't get it, but I don't have to. I just need to stop asking him to say it, and maybe he'll just come out with that word when he's good and ready, on his own time.

After speech therapy, I was so sad for him and discouraged for both of us... it is very hard to see my son so angry because I don't know what he's saying.

As we drove in the car, I prayed for him, asking God to open his mind, unlock his vocabulary, and give him the words I want to hear.

Just then, in the backseat, I heard him say, "Mommy?"

I looked in the mirror at him, and he smiled at me. Then he looked at his brother in the carseat beside him, and he said for the first time, "Tylo..... shhhh." Translated: my brother is sleeping.

I started to cry.

It just goes to show, sometimes it's not about me, my plans, my therapy, and my agenda. He is communicating in his own way, and I need to take the morsels of language as they come.

And they're coming.