Saturday, October 24, 2009

Son Says...

In the past few months E's conversational skills have revved up quite a bit. He can now engage in an intellectual exchange on the phone with Mimi or Papa regarding what he's doing or what he ate for lunch that day. Granted, this is a conversation that is only riveting to a grandparent, but they must be fascinated with it, because they call my phone specifically to talk to him. I have officially been downgraded from "daughter" to "receptionist."

He's also much more excited about the world going on around him. He's learned to spell his name, and when he mastered that one I taught him that the red sign at the end of the street spells S-T-O-P, Stop! So I guess he's put two and two together (which he does a lot more than I realized) and now understands that when letters are strung together it "thpellths" things. Now he constantly asks stuff like, "Mama, what thpellths car? What thpellths truck? What thpellths BIG truck?" It makes me smile. And then, after about twenty words, it gets a little old. The spelling bees are usually interrupted by me turning up the radio and saying "Ooh...this is a good song, E! Let's sing!" (Just being honest!) But then he starts humming or singing in the backseat. And that makes me smile too. (Until I realize that my toddler is singing all the words to an extremely inappropriate Flo-Rida song...then I just feel like a terrible mother. Again with the honesty.)

The newest development in my sons language is a very pronounced stutter. I started noticing it out of the blue a couple of weeks ago. At first it was just a sentence here or there. Now it's pretty much the first word of every sentence out of his mouth. The Village has noticed it as well. Everyone who keeps my son at some point during the week has commented on it. "Did you notice he's stuttering?" they ask. You mean did I notice my son going, "Wha-Wha-Wha-What-What-What-What's that dog doing?" Yeah...I may have picked up on it once or twice. Maybe.

At first I kind of brushed it off as something that kids just do when they are developing. No big deal, right? But as everyone else commented on it, I began to think, "maybe this isn't a normal toddler thing. Maybe I should look into this a little more."

So I did the DUMBEST thing any mother could possibly do. I googled it.
And as it turns out, my child is either experiencing a perfectly normal part of language development that a kid here and there goes through.....OR he has an incurable neurological defect that will haunt him for life and cause him much pain and suffering on the playground. As luck would have it either way, only time will tell. And here I thought the next couple of months would be stress free days of holiday fun and good eats.
Damn you, Google! Damn you AND your easily accessed, overly informing website of terror!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh, I am so there with the constant spelling of the whole blasted world! I am also a supporter of an automatic momblock feature on Google for anything related to children. Ava has a shoulder shrug that she's had her whole life--as you said, totally normal/harmless, or crippling neurological defect. Stupid Google. Great E stories, as usual.

HappyascanB said...

How exciting it really must be to watch his little mind develop! And scary, honestly, with the stuttering. I, too, fall victim to webmd.com. After a fainting spell and a few out of wack blood panels, I was recently referred to a hematologist / oncologist. I spent an entire weekend obsessing over the terrible, horrible, life-ending things I could have, thanks to google and webmd. As for E, I'll be praying it's just a developmental phase, or therapy will be available to you at just the right time to nip it in the bud if necessary.

Stephani said...

You make me laugh!!! Parker did the same thing and it annoyed me to no end!!! If I told him to slow down once, I told him a MILLION times!! It is just something that they go through, one day E will stop and you will completely forget about it. :) Until then, stop using Google...it will only cause you to worry more than you need to !!! :)

Kat said...

Hey! My twin used to stutter all the time growing up. As the wonderful sister that I am I used to make fun of him constantly. Just to let you know he is a totally wonderful person...he grew out of it. :) Love ya!