Camp Champ - where we've been and where we're going

Days 2 and 3 of camp have both been outstanding for Peanut.  He is participating more in the large group activities and a bit more in the small group activities.  He continues to learn and thrive in his individual sessions with his clinician.  Last night at dinner he used his new functional phrase of "Can I have" in a very slow and methodical way that I have never seen.  He is working on "turtle talk" so that he can slow down his words and sentences so that he can be more intelligible and it is really helping.  We are giving him a tactile cue on his arm to help him remember to slow down and he seems to be responding well.

In the small group activity, Peanut refuses to participate in the singing and dancing.  It breaks my heart to watch because I know he can't sing, not words anyway.  Songs have a different cadence and they go too fast for him.  I looked at another mom as we were watching both of our kids and said "Oh I wish Peanut could do what J is doing."  She looked at me with eyes that know first hand the fears and worries that keep me up at night and said that J was exactly where Peanut was 2 years ago.  See J is two years older than Peanut which is hard to remember when you just want your boy to be able to sing the song and do the hand motions along with everyone else.  She patted me on my back and told me that this was my future, Peanut would get it, he will sing and he will talk in longer sentences.  He will.  This is our future. 

I feel like I spend a lot of time living right in this moment when it comes to Apraxia.  I try not to think too much about the future because honestly, it scares the crap out of me.  There are so many unknowns, but the known quantities is that typically children with apraxia have difficulties learning to read and spelling tests are apparently torture.  I don't spend a lot of time in the past either because remembering when Peanut was totally non-verbal is hard.  Remembering him prompting his own mouth while trying to get a word out can be heart wrenching or how he would get "stuck" on a word and not be able to move past it causing him so much frustration.  But this week of camp has reminded me that the past isn't just full of difficult memories, it serves to show us how far Peanut has come and the future doesn't have to be scary, it can be about how many more triumphs are in store for him. 

As always, he is my hero.  He is working so hard to get his s cluster sounds, slow down his talking and use his phrases that he knows.