Bringing Up Boys

4th of July Fun

Happy Birthday America!  We had a wonderful trip to Youngstown to celebrate!  Here are some of my favorite pictures from our weekend of family, food, fireworks and fun.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bad Spinach

Dollar General

Sometimes I am reminded that all the Thomas trains, trucks, cars, power wheels, tricycles, blocks and balls fall by the wayside for a simple toy from the Dollar Store. 

These bubble wands cost $1.  That's it.  A lousy buck.  And the boys spent all weekend playing with them. 

Childhood is so awesome!

 

 

 

Two For the Show

 Our Beckett turned TWO today!  Two!  It's hard to sum up my outgoing little boy in just a sentence or even a paragraph.  But if I look back on this post one day, I want to remember...

Beckett LOVES music.  He loves to dance.  He loves to sing.  He's always loved music...since he was an infant.

Beckett is so curious.  He wants to look in every drawer, every cabinet.  He wants to see, smell, and taste anything he comes in contact with.

Beckett is a mama's boy.  He always has one eye on me and one eye on whatever activity he's occupied with.  He prefers me over anyone and everyone...and I'd be lying if I said that I didn't love it. 

Beckett is a snuggler.   A cuddle bug.  A sweetheart.

Beckett is adventurous.  A daredevil.  A limit tester.  He knows no bounds, and sometimes that scares me!

Beckett is a comedian.  He loves getting laughs, and he knows what to do to get them.

Happy Birthday to my sweet boy!  My big boy.  My official toddler.   You are a kid who knows how to keep things interesting.  Two is going to be fun (and probably a little crazy)!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

$peech Therapy

If you've heard me talking about my coupon clipping obsession....

If you've seen me planning our Stay-cation....

If you've wondered why I get my hair done at the Aveda Institute instead of by a licensed stylist...

THE REASON IS BECAUSE OF THE COST OF SPEECH THERAPY.

By no means am I complaining.  Nope.  I would pay a million dollars to heal Cooper's speech delay.  Heck, you can't put a price on my baby's voice.  So giving up a few luxuries, and learning to balance our budget more efficiently seems like a small price to pay for the BIG results we've seen out of Cooper over the past year.

Right now, Cooper get's about 100 minutes of speech therapy a week, and it aint' cheap (so I've said).

$213 per hour at Nationwide Children's Hospital.

$120 per hour at Columbus Speech and Hearing. 

The grand total per month - about $1,400 smackers.  And that's just for therapy.  The evaluations and testing all costs extra...on average about $400 apiece.

So how do we - a regular middle class family - pay for something that costs way more than our mortgage?  With help.  Lots of pride swallowing help. 

Part of getting Cooper the help he needs, and sometimes the care we struggle to afford is about seeing past the labels, the stereotypes, and the fear of what other people will think.  The dreaded MRDD was the toughest label for me to overcome.  And frankly, sometimes I still shutter when I see their return address on a letter in the mailbox.  MRDD.  Shutter.   

BUT...It was REALLY easy to get past the whole MRDD thing when one of those letters had information inside about the 5 hours of speech therapy costs that they were willing to cover per month.  No evaluations necessary.  No crazy hoops to jump through.   Just have the therapist bill them and they would write the check.   Thanks to them, our speech therapy bill has dropped from $1,400 a month to about $500 per month.  So if you ever see an MRDD levy on your voter ballot, be sure to think of Cooper and the help they have given him that we might not have been able to afford otherwise.

We've also had tremendous help from Cooper's beloved Nannie (my mom) - who took it upon herself to form "Cooper's Scholarship Fund."  That Scholarship has helped pay for MANY hours of therapy.  And I could actually see the look of "this-is-so-worth-it" on her face the last time we were in Ironton...Cooper walked upstairs, and was surprised to see Nannie standing in the bathroom with soaking wet hair.  He looked right at her and said "I like your hair Nannie" in a crystal clear voice.  Priceless for sure.

Bottom line, I would go to the ends of the earth to get Coop the help he needs.  Sell the house.  Find a second job.  Whatever it takes. Thankfully it's never come to that because of the people that love us.   They've been there every step of the way, helping Cooper recover from something that is totally fixable....if you have the money.  Thank You :) from the very bottom of my heart.

Elizabeth

Cooper's pediatrician once said something to me that made me laugh...

"Finding a Speech Pathologist is like dating.  You have to go out on a few bad dates before you settle down with the right one." 

Oh so true. 

You would think that finding a Speech Pathologist would be easy.  They'd meet your kid.  Your kid would mimic their words.  Your kid would grasp and learn and be rewarded.  Life is good.  Yeah, that's in a perfect world.

In the world of apraxia...there are waiting lists, there are money issues, and lets not forget - just like adults, sometimes your kid just doesn't click with the person who's supposed to be helping them.  Yup, it's like dating.    We've been down all these roads.

When we first arrived at Columbus Speech and Hearing we were paired up with a young, hip, cute therapist - Kim.  I was excited about Kim.  I liked her.  She had just graduated.  She was eager.  She was energetic.  And then....right on cue - Cooper walked all over her. 

Their sessions were so pointless that Kim eventually asked her supervisor to sit in with her on a session.  Enter Elizabeth.

Elizabeth - a no nonsense, smart, quick, patient Speech Pathologist.  She plopped right down on the floor next to Cooper (remember I'm watching all this through the two way mirror at every session), and she immediately went to work.  During her first 30 minutes with Cooper she had him saying sounds and words that he had struggled with for months.  I didn't know it at the time, but she was using both PROMPT and Kaufman therapies to help him form the words correctly.  I was sold.  So long Kim.  I requested Elizabeth be his main therapist that day. 

Since then, Cooper and Elizabeth have logged a lot of hours together.  She's the one who formally diagnosed him with apraxia.   It's hard to put into words the gratitude I feel for the help she has given my son, but I did write her a thank you note recently.

Elizabeth,

What wonderful work you have done with Cooper over the past year.  I've seen such tremendous progress in his articulation, sentences, and even his play skills.  You have been such a blessing to our family.

Thank you for helping us get on the right path.  Thank you for always having patience with Cooper.  Thank you for having such a wonderful disposition everyday.  Thank you for having the answers that I needed when I couldn't figure out why Cooper was so hard to understand.  While the apraxia diagnosis was overwhelming at first, in some ways it was a relief because I finally knew what we were dealing with. 

With your help, Cooper has gone from grunting, pointing and using one word at a time to building whole sentences.  Cooper couldn't blow out the candles on his 3rd birthday cake, but after working with you, he now blows bubbles and even recently blew out the candles on his great-grandmother's 82nd birthday cake. 

Your work has made a significant impact on Cooper's life and development.  His personality is growing and changing everyday because he can finally express his needs, wants, likes, and dislikes.

Thank you for mapping out a treatment plan for Cooper that has put him on the road to successful language skills.  We look forward to many more sessions with you!

Sincerely,

Gretchen

(Cooper's Mom)

Help Me Grow....or Not

I am sure there have been a lot of families who have been helped by Help Me Grow...Ohio's Early Intervention program.  Unfortunately, Help Me Grow was no help to us. 

Sure they evaluated Cooper several times. 

Sure it was always a relief when they told us "Don't worry.  He'll catch up." 

Sure we believed them.  

Sure hearing them say "there are no signs of autism" was a relief. 

But last May, when Cooper was 2.9 years old and only had about a dozen words - I decided Help Me Grow was largely full of $%#$.   Time to try something new.  A private evaluation.  An expensive one.

I remembered seeing Columbus Speech and Hearing across from my favorite Burger King in college.  They got us in for an evaluation and within a half hour, they diagnosed Cooper with phonological processing issues.  FINALLY. 

It may sound like I'm a little bitter with Help Me Grow, but I'm not.  I realize autism is an epidemic.  I understand that they are overloaded with autism cases.  I wish they wouldn't focus entirely on autism, but I get it.  Those kids need help too and it must be frightening to see so many kids on the spectrum.

In the end, the lack of help from Help Me Grow was part of the path that actually led us to Columbus Speech and Hearing.   And for that, I am grateful.

Apraxia, Apraxic, Childhood Apraxia of Speech, Dyspraxia, Verbal Apraxia, Oral Apraxia....

No matter how you say it, it's not pretty.  But our guy Cooper has made huge progress over the past year. 

This time last year was when the alarms first went off in my head that something "just wasn't right."  

This time last year Cooper had about a dozen words TOTAL.   A dozen.  That's it.  And he was almost 3!

This time last year we had no idea what we were dealing with.  Autism?  Asperger's?  Or was it just a speech delay?  Why was our Cooper engaged in the world, but not speaking?  Why was our Cooper normal in every aspect of toddlerdom, but language?  Why was our Cooper getting so frustrated that he would bang his head into the wall when he couldn't get us to understand (I am dead serious about that too)?

Tests, exams, evaluations, and finally an Apraxia diagnosis, followed by LOTS of speech therapy ...and I feel like Coop is a different kid.  Really.  He has gone from about 10-12 words to full blown sentences.  Clarity and articulation are improving.  The tantrums are long gone.  We have many thanks to give.  Cooper's journey started exactly a year ago and if he's made this much progress in one year, I can't imagine where he'll be this time next year.

Coop still has a lot of work ahead of him, but the future is bright with promise.  Apraxia is tough.  It's a patient recovery process.  A long one filled with repetition.  For those of you that know me well, you know patience is something I have none of.  But this challenge that has been presented to my darling son has forced me to have miles of patience. 

Apraxia is something that doesn't come with a "mild" or "severe" label.  There is no way to tell.  That was, perhaps, the hardest thing about the diagnosis.  There is no way to know what 3, 5, or 10 years will look like down the road.  Only work to do, hope to have, and as a parent...fear to overcome. Fear that my baby, my Cooper, will never talk like everyone else.   Fear that all those words trapped inside his head will never come out of his mouth.  Fear that he will be teased endlessly about the way he talks.  Fear that not being able to say what he is thinking will forever change him.

This week is dedicated to Cooper - and his ongoing recovery from apraxia, the people we have met along the way, and the hope we have for the future. 

Memorial Day Weekend

Always a special weekend for our family.  Memorial Day is like our official start to Summer...which is my  FAVORITE season...and the boys LOVE it too.

 

We swam in the pool....

 

  

 

Ate Popsicles...

 

And funnel cakes...

We went to the Memorial Day Parade.

 

And at night...Chris and I went out for drinks with friends.  We went to a movie.  And we slept in 3 days in a row while my parents got up with the boys.  IT WAS GREAT.

One, single conversation Chris and I had over the weekend summed it all up.... 

ME...."We should try and scrape together some cash to take the boys to the beach this Summer."

Chris...."Why would we go to the beach when we can come and relax at your parents' house?  This is the only place in the world where I can actually get 8 hours of sleep."

While Chris and I are rested....this is what the boys looked like on the way home.  Exhausted from so much fun.

Next stop....Youngstown for the 4th of July.  More family, fun, food and fireworks.  See....Summer rocks!

The Terrible Two's

We are still a month away from the official start of Beckett's "Terrible Two's" phase.  But I have a feeling that he may be a bit ahead of the game.

A.  He's discovered that with the help of Cooper's potty step-stool - he can reach ANYTHING on the kitchen counter...including the chocolate milk mix.

  

B.  He is in a massive "I-don't-want-to-share-anything, everything-is-mine" phase.  Even the neighbors toys.

C.  He has several key phrases said over and over and over again - all day long...

- "Want have that."

- "Want touch it."

- "Don't want it."

- "No! No! No!"

D.  If you ask him at anytime "Who made this mess?"  Without missing a beat he will tell you "Cooper did it."  Even if Cooper is at preschool.

F.  And my personal favorite...Beckett wants to be just like Cooper.  Meaning, he has to have big boy underwear on (over his diaper) at all times...just like Cooper (God forbid Beckett miss out on anything).  He also snags Coop's favorite rain boots at every opportunity.   Some days - he lucks out and gets to put the entire ensemble together.

 

He also takes great joy in wearing my sunglasses.  Sigh.   I really liked those too.

 

And the neighbors have definitely gotten a few laughs out of his obsession with this bike helmet.  No, he doesn't ride a bike.  But he wears this helmet constantly when he's outside.  Not for protection, but because he thinks it's stylin'.

Yup, the next 13 months should be a roller coaster with this strong-minded, opinionated toddler.  But he has such a sweet little smile that I'm a total sucker for.  Not to mention the fact that he's a TOTAL MAMA'S BOY!  And I'd by lying if I said that I didn't love that.