The Little Things

The brain is a fascinating thing. It’s funny how many little skills there are that kids learn instinctively that we take for granted. I had never even thought about many of these skills until the doctors started asking me questions. Does he use his index finger to point at things? Does he nod or shake his head with meaning? Does he look at your face to gauge your reaction when he’s in a new or unfamiliar situation? Does he play appropriately with toys, or does he fixate on one individual part of the toy? Does he try to get your attention when he’s playing with a new toy, just for the sake of showing you what he’s doing? Does he look you in the eye when he requests something? Does he ever bring you something, just to show you, or only when he needs help? Can he turn the individual pages of a board book by himself? Does he imitate sounds and gestures? On and on and on. J is my second child, and I thought that by this point I knew what to look for in terms of development. But for many of those questions, I realized that I had no idea what the answer was. I kept saying, “I THINK he tries to get my attention just to show me something he thinks is cool, but I can’t really visualize what that looks like. I THINK he nods his head yes sometimes, but I’m not really sure.” So I had to start paying closer attention. And I watched other kids his age to see what they did. When I saw other kids doing certain things, I thought “Oh, so that’s what they were talking about. No, J doesn’t do that.” That’s when J’s delays really started to sink in to my brain, especially delays in the area of nonverbal social cues and interaction. Most of these skills are things we never even think about – things that most kids pick up naturally. But for some reason, J isn’t picking them up naturally. That makes it really sad for me to be around other kids his age (or younger) who are behaving in perfectly natural ways that J doesn’t know how to do. It’s not that I resent other parents for having “normal” kids. It just makes me sad that I haven’t gotten to see my little boy pick up those skills and learn these new things. It makes me sad that his little brain isn’t learning what it’s supposed to be learning. It just makes me sad. I don’t think I’ve ever been so sad about anything in my entire life.

But the good news is that I’m realizing that J can be taught these skills. His brain is so easy to train right now. Even if he doesn’t pick it up instinctively, he can still learn these skills. I’m seeing it happen every day. Just last week he learned how to ask for more bubbles. He knew how to say more, but he only associated it with food. He didn’t realize that it would also work to get more bubbles. It only took a few tries with me blowing bubbles, then stopping to wait to allow him a chance to ask for more. He just stood there at first, not knowing how to communicate that he wanted me to blow more bubbles, but after only 3 or 4 repetitions of me showing him how to request more, he had it down like a pro. Now he asks for more bubbles every time I stop, without being prompted. He asks for more water in the bath tub, he asks for more rolling the ball….he totally gets it now. And it only took a few repetitions. AND I’m not a therapist – so really I have no idea what I’m doing. Just in the past week he’s also learned to shake his head no. He had never done that before. Now he walks around shaking his head and saying “No, no, no” to every question I ask him, just like a 2-year old is supposed to do. I know I should be frustrated that he says no to everything, but really I want to jump up and down and clap every time I see him shake that little head in the back and forth no motion. Who would have thought I could get so excited by such a tiny thing? And today he nodded his head yes for the first time. I’m sure I looked ridiculous the way I kept nodding my head in an over-exaggerated way every time I said yes, but he picked up on it. He started to laugh, then he slowly started nodding and saying “Yeah, yeah, yeah!” while laughing hysterically the whole time. Anyone else would have thought we were crazy, but I wanted to squeal and hug him. I don’t know why he doesn’t learn to do these things instinctively, but it’s so encouraging to see that he’s making such amazing progress already, and we haven’t even started therapy yet! I really do believe that with the therapists coming so often, since they actually know what they’re doing, he’s going to do amazingly well. I need the therapists to point out to me what skills J is missing, then show me how to train him in to those skills. If there is any way to train and parent this child out of a diagnosis, Chris and I are going to do everything in our power to make that happen.