I have often wondered, when facing various situations that I encounter on a regular basis in my strange and wonderful career as a mama, "why didn't anyone ever tell me ... ?" No one ever told me, for example, that as a mom I might find chunks of poop in my washing machine after the load (a dark load, by the way, with no underwear in it) had been run ... TWICE. Or that I might forget basic points of grammar and become quite vocabulary deficient as the effects of sleep deprivation settled in. I'm not sure I ever really adequately grasped how quickly I could go from "zero to panic" when we are outside and I suddenly realize I'm not sure where my two year old went. Often I am surprised and exasperated and humbled and exhausted by the weighty task of parenting. The past two days have been those kinds of days.
Yesterday I started a new process in the ever-challenging realm of caring for my children's health: keeping a speech journal for my sweet Leila.
Let me back up. Back in October (2011) our very, very quiet little girl began suddenly to explode with speech. It seemed like one day she was barely putting two words together and the next she was speaking in 5 and 6 word phrases! Shortly thereafter, however, she began to develop a stammer that seemed to accelerate with each passing week. We weren't overly concerned, but at the same time we thought it would be a good idea to get an outside opinion on this completely new-to-us development. Fortunately, Leila was already in an early intervention program, seeing a physical therapist weekly for her significant gross motor delay so at our 6-month assessment meeting I asked about the possibility of qualifying for a speech evaluation. We were approved for an assessment that same day. Our initial visit with the speech therapist determined that Leila's stammer was not due to difficulty with the speech patterns themselves, which was good news. A limited number of speech therapy sessions were nonetheless recommended to allow us to better determine the cause and give us some strategies for helping Leila correct the pattern before it became a bigger issue.
So I find myself, after 2 sessions of speech therapy, faced with the task of documenting (as completely as I am able) each instance of stammering throughout Leila's day, recording the words or phrases on which she stumbles (and which parts of them) and the details of the situation (who is involved in the conversation, the noise level in the room, whether she is initiating interaction or answering a question, etc.) I was prepared for the fact that recording this information all day long would be a logistically difficult task. I was not prepared, however, for the emotional difficulty of my assignment. As my role at this stage is just to observe and gather data I am having to sit by and watch her struggle painfully to communicate. And not only to watch, but to focus on and pick apart and analyze and record the details. I have patiently waited in silent tears for her to stumble as many as 15 or 20 times on a certain word or syllable before she was able to complete her thought. I can't adequately express what a painful process it has been to magnify my sweet little girl's struggle in this way.
Like so many tasks in parenting, keeping Leila's speech journal is something I am doing because I love her and I want to get her the help she needs to grow and succeed, not because it is in any way enjoyable to me. And yet, even as I strive to do what is best for her, God is using this process that brings me pain to do what is best for me. I am reminded of this biblical truth:
"No discipline [instruction, teaching] seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it." (Hebrews 12:11)Earlier in this same chapter of Hebrews we are urged to, "endure hardship as discipline." (v. 7) This tells me that God can use this hardship to discipline and instruct me in selflessness, gentleness, love, and probably a hundred other heart attitudes He wants to work in my life. And it gives me hope that the sometimes painful process of parenting my children has a greater purpose. Yes, I am hoping that keeping Leila's speech journal will yield information that will help us give her the freedom of easier speech, but this season can also bring about an abundance of blessing as God uses this trial to train and mold my heart. I'm looking forward to that harvest!
Update on Leila's speech: She has now graduated from speech therapy and her stammer is nearly nonexistent. The process of keeping the journal helped us to determine that she was not having difficulty with any specific speech sounds and that her stammer was more developmental and situational in nature. Developmentally, she was having to learn the muscle movements associated with words she knew, but had not spoken. Her speech "exploded" so quickly that her mouth was sometimes just unable to keep up with her brain. Another layer to the problem was that she was just trying to be heard! She wanted to join the conversation, but wasn't always able to keep pace with the rest of the family (especially the more... ah-hem... talkative members) so she would "hold her space" by repeating a word or sound over and over until she could figure out how to say what she wanted to say. By employing strategies like slowing down the pace of our conversation, asking less direct questions, and making sure she knew we had time to listen to her, she improved greatly within the span of about 3 months. We had a huge "relapse" when Channah was born (which the speech therapist warned us might happen), but after about a month she was able, once again, to articulate and speak without a stammer. We are so thankful for the expertise of our wonderful therapist and that this issue was resolved so quickly.
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