Just Had to Share

Something I've been waiting for for the last two years finally happened today. When I walked in the door C called me "Mama." I almost cried.

Many of you know that C was born 10.5 weeks early and spent several weeks in the hospital before he could come home. We were told that he could experience developmental delays and we were thrilled when he caught up to his peers more quickly than anticipated. But, there was one area that we have had major delays and that's speech.

At 1 year C didn't have any words. He was "talking" like crazy but, in his own language. I wasn't really worried about it knowing that eventually he would catch up. At 18 months he had maybe 5 words, neither of them were "Mama" or "Dada." It was starting to get a little bit frustrating. At his 18 month developmental appointment we learned his speech skills were categorized at around 12 months. Our doctors had us get his hearing tested and we started working with Early Childhood Intervention.

All this time we kept hearing people say he'd have a breakthrough and that their children just started talking one day, or he'd talk when he was ready. I'd been pretty patient with not hearing "Mama" from my child but, deep down that's what I really wanted.

C turned 2 last month and still wasn't using more than 5-10 words but, over the last two weeks he has started saying more and more things. I almost fell out of my chair when he said "please" for more milk. And today was the best day ever for me as a mom when I walked in the door and he looked at me and said "Mama." I almost hugged him to death!

I know we still have more progress to make but, I'm just so excited about this accomplishment I can go back to being patient again.