Talking Tuesday

Two word combo's:
Working on Lucas' language skills is not about teaching him a new word or working on a singular letter sound like p.  Language skills are about combining words together and form a sentence so that you can have a conversation.  My homework lately has been to work on making Lucas combine two words.  He has a repretore of two word phrases; "Light on" "TV on" Help me" "Big bowl" "Apple Juice." Basically anything you can add to "ON" "IN" "BIG" and "ME".
Before embarking on this two word combination aspect of language our SLP warned that it will compromise his clarity.  Oh boy was she right!  There are times I feel torn because "Yay he is talking more" and yet I struggle to understand what he is saying.  Sometimes I will have him repeat himself three of four times before the light bulb goes off.  Yet there are those times that I will just nodd my head and say "okay" because I have zero clue what he was trying to say.  In those moments I swear Lucas realizes that I didn't understand him and either he just walks away defeated or he becomes stubborn and continues to try to get his point across but breaks down into tears of frusteration.  It is a confusing emotion for me because I realize we have so far to go but at that same time my heart bursts with joy that he is talking! 

I say "Lucas say ... "

This morning:
This morning we had an unexpected and fun teaching moment.  Out in front of the house was a school bus!  This is very exciting!  I found Lucas glued to the windows watching the scene, his second bowl of oatmeal sitting on the floor next to him.  "Aye!"  Lucas is shouting with glee.  I say "Lucas say Bus"  Lucas says "Us" I say "Lucas say School Bus" Lucas says "ool us" I say "Lucas say Big Bus" Lucas says "Bee Us" I say "Lucas is this fun?"  Lucas says "Aye!" We continue to watch the bus while it waits for the recycling truck to move.  I am adoring Lucas and how he marvels over this bus.  His excitement is contagious and addicting.  I don't want this moment to end so I pray the bus doesn't move yet but at the same time I keep scanning the area thinking of more things I can get him to say.  Then the truck moves and the bus inches away from us.  I look down at Lucas with the smile still on his face.  Lucas say "Bye Bus" and Lucas says "bye bus".  As he walks away from the window I now see the oatmeal smeared on the window.  Mental note, I need to clean that but dang the mess is worth it! 

After his playgroup:
"Mommy! Home!" Lucas sweetly calls out to me.  He is in a great mood and the first thing he wants to do is eat.  I say okay and we go into the kitchen but here is our problem.  He wants oatmeal.  I have been trying to teach him that certain things are eaten at certain times.  He is a great eater so I don't have to indulge his food requests just to get nutrition into him, this morning he had two servings of oatmeal.  We had a little confrontation and tantrum over the oatmeal subject but finally I won and he had a sandwich for lunch, with the promise of "First sandwich then popcorn.  But you must eat your sandwich." I don't think he even chewed because a few moments later he is handing me his empty plate and walking to the cabinet for the popcorn. 
We use a hot air popper.  This little machine is one of my favorite tools to get Lucas talking.  Standing on a chair he can actually watch the kernals POP.  When they do we say "POP" and as they pop faster we say "POP" faster.  I know popcorn is one word but I use it as a two word combination for Lucas.  When he says Popcorn he looses the consanants and it comes out more like "ah on".  When you ask him to say pop he can say the first P, when I work with him eye to eye and have him put his finger under his bottom lip he then can say both p's in pop.  His fun two word phrase that gets included with our popcorn routine is "Big Bowl".  In December I spent time working on this concept of big and little. Lucas thought using a Big Bowl for Little Popcorn was hilarious.  Even since then the term BIG has been a fun one to toss around and is great for doing two word combo's. 

Speech Therapy:
Today Lucas was excited to show off his Hide Out.  Okay, yes hide is a hard word for him and I tried getting him to say Tent but he loves to hide and would not accept tent.  When his SLP walked through the door he excitedly ran over and said "Hi ou", his therapist didn't understand so I translated for him.  In therapy they worked on cvc - top and cvcv - tunnel.  He gave her some two word combo's; that way, baby up, light on, more on, and baby sleep. 
I did steal some of her time to ask questions about the meetings we have coming up regarding getting him into the school district and some board cards she is doing for his daycare. 

Evening time.
I have to admit.  I was worn out.  I couldn't focus enough to continue working on his language skills.  He is a ball of energy, always turned on.  My own issues leave me a little drained.  Also I did not put him down for a nap today, his SLP was coming early so there wasn't any time.  I know I naturally worked on langauge skills with Lucas, it is a force of habit now.  However I didn't have the energy left to consciencely work with him.  Still, I think today was a good Talking Day!

Plan for tomorrow what doesn't get done today. 
Tomorrow Lucas has Developmental Intervention Therapy (DI).  I called today and need to followup tomorrow regarding his evaluations with the school district.  I also have an unholy mess in my kitchen that I must do before going to Ash Wednesday Mass.  Gabe informed me this morning that he needs his laundry done, he is out of jeans.  I am sure after I go to bed I will remember at least half a dozen of other things that need to be done, like Valentine's Day Cards!