Cooper said Cow. Twice actually. We were sitting on the floor playing last night with a push behind walking toy. It has numbers and buttons and shapes on it and plays music. And it has one animal on it…a cow. Jamie and I were sitting on the floor next to the boys and Cooper pushed the cow and plain as day said ‘cow.’ I looked right at him and said, ‘what did you say?’ He responds with ‘cow.’ As if I was asking a ridiculous question. Now for anyone that…
Read MoreAs you may have noticed, I am writing this blog a bit backwards. It took me a long time to gather up the courage to put my feelings into words and I want to make sure that I write the whole story. Around 2 1/2 we really started doing a lot of new things with Cooper’s care. He was in speech therapy twice a week at our local hospital. The school district was also coming into our home one time a week. I have been very honest about my opinion…
Read MoreWell, we survived the 3rd birthday party. No meltdowns…from any of us! Including me! I think I officially held my breath for 2 straight days. My anxiety for the actual party had really been building beforehand. I was scared that Cooper wouldn’t care about any of it. Or even worse, hit himself in the head. Sometimes, when he gets really stressed out, he will smack his head. It breaks my heart every time he does it. And he knows he will get a reaction so he will do it again.…
Read MoreThis is a hard post to write but I need to do it. I need to know there are other moms out there who feel like I do. I love my son. I love every single thing about him. He is my life. But there are moments when I would give anything for him to change. Having a child who doesn’t talk is really, really lonely. There are no ‘mama’s or I love you’s.’ There are no ‘why’s or ‘I do its.’ The car ride home from daycare is the…
Read MoreOnce the hearing debacle was over we were back at square one. I actually thought we were worse off. I’m not a debbie downer but we still had no good reason as to why Cooper wasn’t talking. I would like to call this phase our ‘do it all’ phase. Cooper was receiving speech therapy services 2 times a week at our local hospital and also receiving a visit once a week from the school district. During this time I felt really paralyzed about what to do. I didn’t know who to talk…
Read MoreI took Cooper alone to meet with the School Audiologist. I didn’t want Sawyer or my husband with us. I wanted it to be quick and painless. I wanted it to be easy. For the millionth time I prayed that life with Cooper could be easier. Why did it always have to be so hard? The School Audiologist met us at the Scottish Rite Clinic. This place is amazing. They specialize in working with children that have speech and language disorders. It was calm. I liked calm. I think angels…
Read MoreHearing aids are expensive. I will add that at the time we had really good insurance and hearing aids are still expensive. We had to bring a check for $1600 when we picked them up. That is a lot of money to us. So we were pretty stressed out putting the hearing aids on our wild toddler with sensory issues. How the hell is this going to work? I want to add a little info here about the hearing aids themselves. While we waited to get the hearing aids I googled…
Read MoreDuring the two-week wait for the hearing aids our lives got turned upside down. I call this the beginning of the end. The school district came to our house and introduced us to a deaf teacher. This person would help Cooper. She was very, very nice. I actually really like her. We also met a woman from Minnesota Hands and Voices. Also, very nice. But as this progressed we started hearing weird things. Here were the worst two: You may want to stop speaking to Cooper and switch completely to…
Read MoreHaving a baby changes your whole life. Time changes. The days are long. I used to say, “Cooper gets us up at the crack of dawn and doesn’t quit until he collapses at bedtime.” Before we had Cooper, our marriage was very strong. We wanted a baby so badly and got pregnant easily. When you are pregnant, and even before, you picture what life with this baby is going to be like. My husband went to college on a baseball scholarship and I played sports as well so I pictured…
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