Speech Therapy Frustrations

So we went to a Speech Therapy parent information night at the Children’s Hospital on Monday. Back in January, some may remember, we had Sam screened at a clinic and he was determined to likely need services and “screened into the programme.” What that was SUPPOSED to mean was that in the following three months we would be called and given an opportunity to attend a parent info night. We were told that in the three months following our attendance at the info night he would be evaluated and he could expect services in the three months following that. So:

January – screened in.

March/April – Parent-Info night

June/July – Evaluation

October/November – Services

Seemed like a LONG wait to me. However, he was talking and progressing and personally I thought the speech pathologist may have jumped the gun a little so I was willing to wait.

Ya, end of June and we’ve JUST had out info-night. We were told he will be evaluated sometime between August and November. At this point I’m thinking November is likely. He won’t get services until FEBRUARY!!!! That’s over a year from the point in which a speech pathologist suggested he should receive services. That’s ridiculous.

Not to mention that while he is progressing and talking in two to three word sentences now and repeating stuff like crazy he still talks like he has a mouth full of marbles. We are unable to understand 90% of what he says (Kamryn can understand more) and strangers can’t understand him at all. He gets EXTREMELY frustrated, poor little guy. So now we are looking at paying out of pocket and getting things checked ourselves.

I go back and forth on this. Sometimes I listen to him and am certain that I’m just expecting too much – Kamryn I think is a little gifted in the whole language side of things. She really has a good grasp of both English and French and has a wonderful vocabulary and very good enunciation. She’s not a milestone. Then though I bump into other two year olds who speak clearly and in complex sentences and I really worry.

I just don’t want to waste anyone’s time if he’s really fine but I have a nagging belief that he’s not. His godmother is a speech pathologist (unfortunately she doesn’t live in this city). Daniel is going to call her and see what advice she has to give.

Educating Kamryn

So Kamryn looked at me the other day and said that she didn’t like being brown.

Okay I admit it I panicked.

Not something I was expecting or knew how to face at that moment. Mind is spinning and I’m trying to think of intelligent things to say to bolster her self-confidence and tell her how great it is to be “brown.”

Deep intake of air for Maman who needs to come out sounding cool and casual. Except for the long pregnant pause I think I pulled it off.

So Kamryn, why don’t you want to be brown? What would you rather be?

Black, like granddad (for some reason I’m also “brown” * dunno * Daniel is pink. lol).

Okay – big sigh of relief. MUCH easier to deal with this one. I would have handled it the same way regardless but I worry less with this perspective.

We talked about how everyone is a different colour. That’s just who we are what makes us special. She was quite accepting of this. I think she often just says stuff to provoke conversation. It’s not like it’s really bothering her or anything. She often will ask the same question eighty gazillion times just to provoke conversation and get attention (i.e. if she asks me one more time why she has a “new” (it’s now 4 months old) car seat I might just explode.

I cleaned out my herb garden, which was COMPLETELY over run with mint yesterday. NEVER planting mint again. I planted mint in pots a few years back, which I then stupid buried. The mint escaped the pots and took over the entire 6 by 3 foot plot and has also taken to exploring the rest of the back yard. I thought dill was bad. The mint did make the back yard smell nice but how much mint does one really need?!?

Anyway, Kamryn was “helping.” The mint was a good two feet high (okay so I should have got to this weeks ago!) and very hard to pull up. To make matters worse we have A LOT of spiders in the garden. The tall dark mint made a great haven for bugs of all sorts but especially the gazillion spiders that populate of back yard. Now I’m not a huge fan of spiders but I’m not deathly afraid of them either. These though are icky spiders. For one they seem to be quite fertile (I think it might just be the type of spider but I think not) which grosses me out. Not their fertility, per se, but rather the fact that every second one has a huge white egg sack appended to them – ick!

Lately, Kamryn has been expressing a fear of bugs. I don’t think it’s a real fear but rather a manufactured one and I would like to shake the person who put this idea in her head. Kamryn has a rather bold personality. She’s not afraid of anything except performing on stage. Lol She doesn’t mind the dark and has never demonstrated anything but absolute joy in bugs (Sam well that’s a different story – terrified of bugs.) So I think the “bug fear” is mostly a look at me I can be girly and scared. So I’m trying to be casual about the hoards of spiders and figured I would be a smart mum and educate my child. So I picked a hideous spider and told her about all the little baby spiders in the spider’s “tummy” (hmmm… the birds and the spiders?). Charlotte’s web seemed more romantic than this. Okay so now she wants to know how babies get in the tummies. Yikes.

An aside: Okay I know you’re supposed to use anatomically correct language and I shouldn’t use tummy I should tell her the uterus but good grief – she’s not even three yet! I was told tummy too and eventually figured it out. Hopefully my child isn’t so “simple” that this will scar her for life. We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

I really have to get reading – these questions are hard. She wouldn’t accept “God puts them there” as an answer (seemed kind of simplistic to me too though). She wanted to know why God puts them there. She wanted to know why they needed to be there. Okay my fault I must teach her less. Perhaps lock her in the basement, in the dark, tied to the furnace.

We did have a short discussion (she brought it up) about how she was in her birthmom’s tummy not mine. This was prompted by a discussion about where her cousin came from (she remembers him being in her Aunt’s tummy). It’s still all very matter-of-fact for her which I’m grateful for. I don’t know if she doesn’t get it or if it’s just not upsetting for her. I’m hoping the latter but I’m not completely naïve.

It’s kinda fun to have “real” conversations with her. It’s fun to be her mom. :)

I’m officially a soccer Mom – an obnoxious one at that. :)

Sunday was Kamryn’s first day as a bona fide soccer player. She was very excited but probably not as excited as me. All day she kept asking if “Coach Stefano” was going to be there. He was the coach she had last fall when she took an indoor soccer class. Notably we didn’t continue the class into the winter because she didn’t seem to be getting much out of it. She just wouldn’t listen. Coach Stefano was good though – her coach in this league – not so much. Ah well. The idea is that the kids have fun and fun they did have. Although who in their right mine puts a 3 ½ year old in goal for a whole game! Poor kid (not mine thank heavens!) was just standing there. She wasn’t really goal keeping because the “coach” told her not to move so she wasn’t going to. Finally her mother went over and pulled her out of goal so that she to could have a little fun.

Kamryn had a great time and was actually quite good for the first part of the “game.” She ball handled well and was aggressive enough to get in the pack and actually kick the ball. Now she wasn’t perfect – at one point I heard her narrating to their coach as she ran down the field how she had new soccer shoes. Still I was very proud of her. She played MUCH better than I expected she would. Then her friend (the aforementioned goal keeper) was put into the actual game and the wheels kind of fell off at that point. They were holding hands, comparing ponytails and generally socializing instead of actually playing. I have to admit it was cute if somewhat maddening. Their team, Team Italy, got completely creamed by Team Trinidad who somehow seemed older (they really aren’t although it is conceivable that our team is 3 ½ year old “heavy”) and decidedly more talented. I’m hoping that next Sunday they will play Team Poland because I took a look at Team Poland and while cute (what 3 or 4 year old in huge soccer gear isn’t?) looked decidedly “less athletic” than Team Italy. Lol One can only hope.

I did notice that a good portion of Team Italy (at least 5 kids out of maybe 15) spent a great deal of time on the sidelines crying while the same didn’t seem true for Team Trinidad. I don’t really understand but maybe it’s because I don’t have a kid with separation anxiety. I’ve never been in that situation (things may change when Sam starts doing things where I’m not RIGHT there). Parents were on the sidelines; they weren’t all that far away. * shrug * Hopefully they will get more into it. One little girl was just breaking hearts. I think she sobbed from the warm-up right through to the final whistle. I kept thinking that her parents should just pull her but I guess that wouldn’t have helped her any. Poor kid.

Kamryn must have been completely exhausted by the end of the night. I don’t think she ever stopped running. Sam was quite put out that he could play to; he though had a pretty good time running along with Kamryn, Jordan and Braeden (little boy across the who lives across the street) before and after the game. During the game he was COMPLETELY miserable. I can’t blame him but I don’t know what I can do – I can’t leave him at home and I can’t tie him up and gag him. Drugs… perhaps…drugs (just kidding!) This time I tried food; plying him with cookies whenever he got restless. Oie can that boy put away cookies so that didn’t work for very long. I will have to be more creative next weekend, although hopefully Daniel will be off work so I won’t be on my own with him. He tends to listen to Daniel MUCH better than me.

Anyway, while getting Kamryn ready for bed she kept proclaiming how much she enjoyed soccer and how she was going to dream about it that night. I think we have a winner here. She likes it AND she’s actually good at it (for a not quite 4 year old anyways). Hopefully she will continue to enjoy it; of all the sports she could play soccer is the one I really hoped she would get into – equipment is cheap and I don’t have to sit in a freezing rink at 6 am on a Saturday morning. Before you say anything, I am prepared to sit on a sopping field in November.

Some Photos:

My soccer star:



My soccer star and her amazing teammates. Her "best mate" Jordan and the little boy who lives across the street. It was his birthday Sunday. When he was born 4 years ago we didn't even know Kamryn was going to exist. They are seven weeks apart in age.

Brother-Sister Day

We had our first “Brother-Sister” day on Tuesday. It was glorious. Everything came together so nicely. Both Daniel and I took the day off work and took the kids to the beach. Kamryn was sooooo excited. She kept explaining to Sam the significance of the day. Sam at 2 years old couldn’t have cared less. Lol

So we had a picnic lunch down at the beach. The weather was glorious and we have a beautiful beach just down the road (4 min) drive from our house. The kids only got out of the water to eat. The water was frigid and they didn’t seem to care. Sam kept filling and re-filling a bucket of water that he kept dumping over himself. Brrrrrrrrr… We dragged them home for showers and naps mid-afternoon and I had to wake them both for dinner at 5:30 less we be late for Kamryn’s last ballet class of the season. All four of us went to ballet class together after a dinner of McDonald’s (yuck! But it’s the kids favorite and it was their day). After the class we invited Kamryn’s best friend home with us for cake and then all went off to bed; both kids were completely wiped out. Sam was just a quivering mass of crying tiredness at that point.

It was a great family day though. I can’t believe that it’s been a year since Sam joined us. It wasn’t a picture perfect homecoming. Our little guy had it rough – that first separation from his grandmother (whom he had been living with) was hard on him even though we weren’t strangers to him at that point. He was very attached (and really tired after a long day) and when she left he cried and cried (she did come back to visit the next day). Still he did so well in the following days although he’s still a big crier with a wicked temper – just his personality.

Here’s a picture we took of both kids when we were visiting with him (about 3 weeks before he came home)



Here are some photos from “Brother-Sister” Day.

Pre-beach:







One beach photo – of the many crappy ones I took:



Post beach:




The little girl in the middle is Kamryn’s best friend. Sam is in love with her - lol. His feelings are returned. lmao Note how the only person actually looking at the camera instead of the cake was the guest.