Battling Speech

Brady is going to be two this month and soooo much has been going on in the last couple of months that there has been no time to blog. Well, no time for this mom anyways. I know there are super moms out there who can "do it all" but, I am just not one of those moms.

My family including me has been sooooo sick this whole winter. Will vomiting, high fevers, to coughing up part of our lungs -- its been a never ending battle. Thankfully, these are all common things that every family tends to go thru during the winter and we can get past it. We are all in pretty good health and I am very thankful and feel blessed for that.

Back to Brady turning two! I cant believe that my first born is already going to be two. I decided to have Brady tested by AZEIP (AZ early intervention program ) for his speech. He gets quite frustrated when he is trying to tell us things and we are not understanding because its all jargin. He will usually just get up closer in your face and say what he is trying to tell you over and over again. He knows exactly what he wants and is a smart little boy. He is just having a hard time with his expressive language. Of course Brady is our first born so all of these new obstacles and battles are new for me. My sister Jillian and friend Christine are well educated in the education department and both of them have children that have received services for speech. They both encouraged me to have Brady tested and have helped me out along the way with the path I need to take to get Brady the help he may need.

Clint -- the speech pathologist came out and tested Brady last week. He asked me a few questions and spent about 10 min. running around with Brady who was just speaking chinese to him the whole time. We discussed a little about what he thought and he said he feels like he is a little delayed but, will meet with the team and they will call me to let me know if he would qualify for services.
Brady did in deed end up making the "cut" for speech services that will be rendered with Clint. HOWEVER......he will only be receiving once a MONTH services. I consulted my sister and Christine and they both got on their boxing gloves and said ...let me at uhm! hehe They both felt that once a month was not very beneficial and I needed to talk to Clint. This would come down to 6 hours a year that Brady would get some help with his speech. Uhmmm.....if ya put it that way -- sounds totally Lame huh!

I called Clint and spoke to him and he agreed that he felt that Brady would benefit from having weekly services but AND I QUOTE.....he just doesnt have time.
Hmmmmm.....ok sooooo you are telling me that my son would benefit from services more often then once a month and once a week would be better but YOU DONT HAVE TIME??? WOW!!!! I MEAN WOW!~!~!

The conversation went on and I asked if I could find someone who HAD THE TIME to service him if he felt that was the next step I should take -- he agreed. I then asked him if he would make that recommendation for Brady to be serviced once a week and he declined. WHAT??? Soooooo - hmmmmm - totally confused at this point. Everything this man has just told me he is now back tracking and is obviously being a bully. He encouraged me to call AZEIP and express my feelings and that he could only service him once a month and thats just the way it is.

For all the parents out there who don't have a Jillian or Christine -- you would totally be walked on at this point if you didn't have any insight about this process. I make a phone call over to Amy who is above Clint and we sat on the phone for about 30 min. I stressed my concern with my conversation with Clint and she in a round about way -- supported him and threw out a developmental specialist to come into my home once a week. To a some what educated mother -- this sounded like a great plan and I had made some progress. WRONG!
A developmental specialist-- Christine told me -- is someone with a degree and has nothing to do with speech. In fact -- Christine use to BE a developmental specialist. Its really just going to be play time for Brady. GRRRRR!

Soooo.....here we are with Clint still coming out only once a month and developmental specialist going to come out once a week. Who knows -- maybe Brady will really make progress and I can cancel all of this all together. He is such a smart little boy and his receptive language is amazing. We just would like to see some more progress with his expressive language. I will stay on top of updates on the blog with Brady's progress.

Which leads me to Brady and turning two. I have decided that I am not going to buy Brady any toys from Target or Wal-Mart or or or -- I am going to spend some money for his birthday and get him learning things from Lakeshore. Stacy ( who is Connors Speech Therapist) comes into my home twice a week and works with Connor. Brady LOVES getting into her bag and pulling out stuff that he can just sit and play with and LEARN while she works with Connor. She has a lot of learing boxes that focus on colors, shapes, and letters. Brady loves to pull things out of these boxes and rattle off what he thinks they are to me. I really would like to make some progress with Brady on my own so, I can tell AZEIP where to put it. I only want whats best for my little man and hope that we can attack this obstacle. Stay tuned!