Speaking of Speaking

We’ve been having a lot of speech therapy fun here in the Fiske house. I know a lot of you have been curious about what this entails and how he’s doing, so I’ll give an update.
We have only seen Tennyson’s therapist once officially, but she gave us a list of things a mile long to work on between visits and we’ve been working hard.
First, sign language. Second, not guessing what he needs.
The first is a mixed bag for me. He currently can sign “more”, “eat”, “drink”, “help”, “all done” and “bubbles”. So on one hand, I’m thrilled to be communicating with Tennyson more. I’m thrilled that he is picking up on signing incredibly fast (even faster than our therapist expected). It only takes him a day or two to pick up a new sign. But on the other hand, his vocabulary is very limited. All I get all day long is “bep” (which is what he says when he signs help). “Bep!” “Bep!” “Bep!” And then I have to figure out what he needs help with. Which is fun in the morning and by the afternoon I’m absolutely sick of being dragged around listening to “Bep!” I have to constantly remind myself how happy I am that he can communicate now. Even if it drives me nuts.
The second part is leading to a lot of tantruming here in the Fiske house. Turns out Tennyson is pretty used to getting everything handed to him. We are trying to do better. After a minute or two of screaming and fussing, we can usually get him to do some sort of sign that will tell us what he needs. And, yes, usually that is just “Bep!” And, yes, by the end of the day I’m usually weak and just hand him his food/sippy/ipod before he asks. I’m only human. I can only listen to so many fits a day.
So that’s all the progress we’ve made so far. It’s actually a lot. He’s picking up sign language a lot faster than we ever expected. He’s starting to have what could almost qualify as conversations with us. And he’s starting to want to talk more. Progress.