Little Gifts

Ben and I have been attending his speech therapy lessons for four weeks now. His speech is moderately delayed due to some severe hearing impairments at critical speech development stages. He suffered from ear infections that caused damage (not permanent, thank you God). His hearing was 30% 2 months ago, it is now 75%, and his ears are draining on their very own accord (no tubes needed). He has been making some progress in speech therapy, not rapid, but gradual and building. One of the most interesting things I have noticed is his strong personality emerging. He doesn't like to be pushed to practice something he doesn't feel confident in. He will cross his little arms and say, "all done," or "I did" when asked to repeat a word. Sometimes he just says, "no." According to his speech therapist, he is a perfectionist and has a stubborn streak. As his mom, this isn't really news to me, but ohhhh, to see it so clearly impede his own progress...tough. To parent this child, to help them along and challenge them without producing insecurity in imperfections...a balancing act. We have made tenative stabs at his memory words, right now we're working on the "p" and "t" sound at the end of words. He will invariably leave that sound off of the word, so hat is ha. I inwardly sigh, knowing that this deficiency means he stuck at the second level of expressive development, and we just move on. Last week at his appointment, when prompted, he correctly said, "soup" and "ketchup"!! Wow! However, since then he has refused to say them or to attempt them. Oh, I think. What now. I diligently ask and push him to try again, reminding him he has said them before and so well! "No," I hear.
As I was putting the boys to bed last night, I gave them their final kisses and Ben grabbed my cheeks. He looked at me, straight in the eye, he said, "Mama....zup (soup!)". I felt tears sting my eyes. He gave me a gift, he knew what hearing that word would mean to me. I swept him up in a big hug and he cuddled right in. He patted my hair, as if he was comforting me. I knew right then I could face my deep, dark fears about his speech inabilities. It would be okay. He would talk. He would catch up. Perhaps Ben had been practicing on his own, privately perfecting these words. Perhaps he just needs intimate moments to share his budding language skills with me.
This morning, in his breakfast prayer, with his eyes tightly closed, he prayed for Mama, Daddy, his car and....'Jesus.' He peeked his eyes open to look at me. Did he say it right? Did I know what he meant?
I so took for granted speech with Jack. It seemed like all of the sudden he was talking, he was expressing himself. Our communication built and built at predictable levels. With Ben, this impedement has caused each word, each verbal expression to be a gift. Each simple word is surrounded by such work; a consonant here, form your lips like this, your tongue here, try again, try again, good job!, nice try!, you're awesome. These simple words have cost me something, they have cost him something. I will not take them for granted.