My son

I love my son. I could never have imagined before he was born how fervent and all-consuming the feelings love, devotion, and protection become once he was born. It’s innate and primal, that “momma-bear” instinct. I want the best for him at all times. I think that’s why it has been so heartbreaking to see him struggle with language and communication development.

From 11 months-old to 17 months-old he suffered from recurring severe ear infections that left him hard of hearing during key months of development. Unfortunately, due to waiting lists and busy specialists, he just suffered through. It all began in October when our family doctor referred him to the Children’s hospital, we heard nothing for weeks and weeks, by March I was fed-up. In hindsight, I should have been more pushy right from the start. I was completely naive in believing that the situation was normal and usual. I believed that the Dr.’s have my son’s best interests in mind and this was the way things worked. I now know better. Our Dr is a lovely man, but overworked, and he does not remember all his patients or their perils from day-to-day. When I questioned the wait, his office was able to refer him to another ear-nose-throat specialist who could see Ben in May. Why they didn’t go this route in the first-place, I don’t know and in hindsight again, I should have questioned it. The specialist was great. She recommended tubes for his ears and to clip his tongue-tie, which had not been identified in the hospital when he was born. Again, my naivety. I just assumed that when the on-call paediatrician checks you baby for flaws and defects in the hospital, that also meant looking for a tongue-tie. Wrong again… unless he was near the end of his shift that day and failed to mention it or check. Back to the tubes… At that May appointment, the specialist put Ben on the list for a surgery spot at the Children’s hospital. We wait and wait and wait, by late February of the next year, thanks to a cancellation (or it would have been 2 more months), it’s my son’s turn for surgery. Unfortunately… scratch that… Fortunately for my son, his ears had cleared-up and it appeared he had grown out of the ‘excessive fluid in the ears’ troubles. But the damage had been done, by damage I am referring to the speech and language delay. Thankfully, he suffered no permanent hearing loss because of the wait and constant infections. We still used his surgery spot to have his tongue-tie clipped. I was not going to “wait and see” any longer for that. That problem, according to the Doctors, should not have effected his ability to learn to speak, but would have made it difficult for him to pronounce words and perhaps given him a speech impediment. I refused to potentially subject my child to even more frustration (beyond the delay) with his speech development and the potential cruelty of other children when he is older.

All this being said, my son is now 2 years, 4 months old and he does not really speak. He says a few words here and there but he is way behind other kids his age. It’s not just the speaking, but comprehension as well. We are on yet another lengthy waiting list with the Children’s hospital for a speech therapy program. Thanks to the recommendation of a friend, I went to the yellow pages and found private speech therapy for my son. DUH, why didn’t I think of that! Again, I am naïve in thinking that the Children’s hospital is the only alternative. Am I dense or what! He has been seeing someone for a few weeks and seems to be improving, slowly. The new issue with my son is his tendency to be aggressive. He does not have the words, yet, to tell his little friends at Daycare that he wants to play, so he pushes them, or hits them, or sits on them. This has become very stressful for the Daycare educators. I can’t even put into words the feeling of complete heartbreak when the daycare pulls you aside at the end of a day and tells you that your sweet, wonderful little baby has pushed, kicked, and hurt someone else’s little one. Even more heartbreaking when you see your baby push another child to the floor for no apparent reason.

We are in action again, trying to find a balance. Trying to get him to understand that pushing is not acceptable, and that he is hurting his friends. Trying to get him that extra help that he may need to help facilitate his cognitive development.

Most days I feel so helpless and completely to blame. Why didn’t I advocate more strongly (be that pushy Mom) for him?! DAMMIT, I was so naïve and stupid! I am certain there were many things I could have been doing differently to have made this time in his life better or easier for him! I worry all the time. The pure joy that I feel at the end of the day when I know I am going to see that sweet face with a big smile running across the room or yard to give me a big hug has been be tempered by a nagging fear in the back of my mind – ‘what are the daycare educators going to tell me today, please some happy news, please-please-please!’

Is it wrong for me to hope that one of the children will push him back hard, so that he gets a sense of how much he is hurting and scaring his friends when he does it to them?

So here I am with a sweet, smart, happy, beautiful little boy with aggressive tendencies. On Friday I am having dinner and drinks with a bunch of brilliant, beautiful and fabulous Mom’s who all have children my son’s age. I love these ladies! I really look forward to our nights out and have a great time with them. However, sometimes I feel a little sad when I am with them. When I hear all their wonderfully sweet stories about their kids, I can’t help but think, Wow… my son is about 6-8 months behind that development. I know, I know, I should never compare kids this small because development is completely unique to every child, but it’s hard not to. I hope on Friday that I don’t cry and feel like a big fat failure when I tell them all that my son has been going through with the pushing and the therapy.

So, this entire post has been a huge woe-is-me pity party. Let’s end on a happy note… The sun is shining, it’s going up to 24C today and I have tomorrow off work! Best of all, my son buckled his own seatbelt in the car seat today!! Very exciting!! Then he wanted Mummy to sing “boom boom, ain’t it great to be crazy” over and over all the way to daycare. I was happy to oblige him!

Cheers to happy days, my friends!