The Sound of Silence

I realize few of you that know me in real life will believe this. And those of you who know my son in real life will accuse of me fanciful lies and outlandish hoaxes. But it's a tale that must be told despite what it will do to my reputation as a teller of truths. Surely somebody trust worthy will show up and back up this story.

Peanut didn't talk, not really, until he was almost two.

"Unbelievable!" say some. "Ludicrous!" yell others. "Cette incroyable!" scream my French readers (if I have any). But it is the truth. For a very long time, my son only spoke two words.

Mama, because he's an ungrateful wretch of a child and couldn't be bothered to speak the name of the parent that stayed home with him every day.
Igilee. I realize this isn't a word, but he said it clearly and ridiculously often. He said it more than Smurfs say smurf. I don't know what it meant, but he sure did and it applied to EVERYTHING.

Now, for some context for those of you that don't know us IRL, my son never shuts up now. Well, maybe when he's sleeping. But he talks himself to sleep. He talks to anyone who'll listen about Spider-Man, Superman, Batman, his pajamas modeled after these heroes' costumes, the solar system (in a frankly startling level of detail and clarity), whatever. It goes on and on.

And yet, we had to beg this child to talk. It was so bad that when we finally had experts check him out, the first thing they planned to do was test him for autism. I slapped my forehead, and declared that was the problem. He didn't speak, he didn't make eye contact, he sorted things into colors and shapes and such before he was a year old. I wasn't even upset, I was just glad to know what the problem was.

And then he tested entirely negative for autism. So we got a speech therapist named Sharon. Sharon was wonderful. She gave me small games to play with Peanut to get him to start making letter sounds. For instance, when we drove cars they no longer said "vroom vroom." Instead, they said "bub-bub-bub-bub-bub-bub." Sharon taught me dozens of these things and they made a huge difference. She also broke me of one stupid opinion I'd had AND assured me it was a reasonable, though totally wrong, thing to think.

I didn't want to teach Peanut sign language. I thought if I gave him an out from verbal communication, it would just be one more reason to not talk. Sharon assured me that, at this late stage, any communication was good communication and sign might help with his frustration level if nothing else.

Enter my friend in Hawaii, Julie. We also were lucky to have her. Julie's own daughter had some developmental issues and this is one reason Julie became so involved with BabySigns. She sent me a full set of the DVDs (along with macadamia nuts, coffee, and some other Hawaiian goodies).

These things are...well, frankly, I found them difficult to watch. They're baby-focused to the extreme and teach a themed set of signs (bath time, bed time, at the park). But the baby-focus really worked because they are literally the first TV my child ever cared to watch. Before that, no matter what I watched, if he was in the room, he ignored the screen entirely.

But he watched! And he learned! Very shortly, he learned the sign for his favorite food, apples. And the sign for apples led directly to the word apples. But it was a hard path for my deeply and abidingly stubborn son.

But I'll tell you about that next time.