Julia – the girl of a thousand faces!

Julia visited the ENT today. She warmed up to the doctor and even gave him a high-five after a while of playing and talking. He said her level of being tongue-tied is moderate, and while it was our option of treatment, he thought she would benefit from the surgery. It is to be short and simple, but will require a trip to the hospital because of her age. We will schedule this for the middle of April.

They did a hearing test on Julia to eliminate that as an issue for her. She was a bit distracted during a portion of the test and they will re-test her the next time we go in on that portion, but from the results they did get, she does not seem to have any hearing issues.

The doctor agreed that Julia needed to have speech therapy and was pleased that she was going to get some. He felt that she would improve quickly with her speech. Mostly, he suggested that we just make her talk for things on a daily basis. That seems like such a simple thing, but at our house who would ever think you would need to make someone talk. I guess she is just making her own unique spot in our family. Time will tell a lot, but I’m so excited to see the voice that she is discovering.

The girls had an activity that had them add sticker gems to a tiara. After playing with the tiara for a while they discovered they could pull the sticker gems back off the tiara and decorate other things. After having decorated a mailbox and bowls they discovered themselves. I found the girls working together to decorate Julia. Emily had a gentle hold of Julia’s hand as she placed a gem bracelet on her. They had already made a line up on of Julia’s arms and a ring on her ring finger. They were playing so quietly and sweetly. I was amazed at how still Julia sat for Emily to decorate her.

The girls invited me to a concert and this was the performance. The little one was excellent as a drummer and the large one had lots of confidence. The original song is from an episode of Angelia Ballerina that Emily likes, but hasn’t watched in a while. I think her word memory is a lot better than mine. I loved the impromptu concert!

Julia was taking it easy and watching some TV. She didn’t stay like this for long, but long enough for her Mama to take her photo. She does some pretty cute things these days.

We took Julia to visit her pediatrician to discuss her speech issues today. He set up a consult with an ENT at our Children’s Hospital next Tuesday. Also, we will be doing some speech testing with a speech therapist to see what her needs are. We are excited to see what is in store. Emily has been cute, she told me that she was going to teach Julia how to talk. It was very sweet that she was thinking of her sister.

On a side note, Julia measured at 26 lbs. and 34 + inches (mama doesn’t remember the exact size). Given Julia’s refusal to drink milk out of a sippy cup, I was curious to see if she had held her own for weight. Oddly enough, she has risen a few percentile points since her last check-up 5 months ago. The doctor was pleased and told me to stick to my plan to move her to sippy cups.

It is spring break for Grammy so we went over for a little playtime and lunch. It was a bit cooler outside than I was expecting so the girls were underdressed for playing outside. So we found a shrug for Julia and Emily got a sweatshirt that looked like a dress on her. They played outside for a long time both on the swing set and picking up leaves and putting them in a pot with water in it. It always amazes me at what keeps kids entertained.

Julia is looking older now days in her photos. I guess she is getting older. I’m not sure she asked permission to grow up.

This is just a benchmark post. It is good to note current conditions so that later we can see how much we have grown or changed. Also, memories fade and it is good to remember details that are easy to forget.

If you spend time with Julia it is easy to see her strong and individual spirit. It is also obvious that she does not speak much or clearly. Being a pretty laid back parent, I have allowed her to grow and work out her own forms of communication. We have been waiting for a light bulb moment and for her speech to blossom out of her, but haven’t seen it yet. Through a course of conversations with several people and an observation from an aunt, we are taking a more active role in pursuing help for her. That role involved an interview today with a state agency to measure her speech deficiency. It is a good news/bad news situation. The bad news is not terrible; it is just that her deficiency is not bad enough for this agency to work with her. The good news is that in every other area Julia is doing very well. This is probably why she doesn’t qualify. She has been clever enough to work out other ways to communicate with us. The lady who visited with us described Julia as being pretty unique. Most kids with speech problems like hers, show issues in other areas. She definitely encouraged us to continue to look into options for Julia.

Our next step is to take Julia back to the pediatrician. We are going to have him check to see if she is “tongue tied” which maybe aggravating her speech issues. Also, we will get his recommendations for speech therapy. Of all the things that worry me, amazingly this has not become one of them. I’m very curious and interested in knowing more. I’m excited to think that we are going to help her across a hurdle.

Just an overview of where she is at now:

• She speaks partial words generally revolving around single consonant sound.
• She has little inflection in her words. She does have plenty of volume control and will speak from a whisper to a shout/squeal.
• She seems to not make many sounds that involve her tongue (although she uses the ‘d’ sound of DaDa well).
• She will make small two or three word sentences.
• Without context, most of her words are not understandable.
• When reading a book she asks her version of “what’s that” and will answer questions about the page.
• She loves to play animal sounds games.
• She loves to sing babble songs while she plays and goes to sleep.
• She uses a combination of signs, facial expressions, words, and pointing/head shaking to express her wishes and needs.
• Hearing is hard to measure on a two year old, but she seems to hear just fine. That is when she wants to. She hears the door open when it is time for Daddy to come home and runs to greet him.
• She is generally a very happy kid, these last several weeks she has struggled more with emotional issues and lots of tears. We don’t know if these are related to this issue or just normal two-year old developments.