Oct 13, 2009

Nothings Wrong! He's Just the Baby!

"He has big brothers to talk for him. Why would he need to talk when all he has to do is point to get what he wants?" Those are the words of comfort that I clung to when my two year old boy only muttered, "Uh, uh." He didn't point to drinks, cups, toys, or have his every whim met when he appeared to want something. I urged him to say something, anything. He just sat at my feet and cried. Seems like Trent cried all of the time.

Going to town was disastrous. So I planned my grocery shopping on my lunch breaks. I was a single mom from the time Trent was 8 months old to 3 and a half years old. Aaron and Trevor were just not quite old enough to care for Trent for any length of time. I noticed a pattern to our shopping and his mood. If the store had florescent lights, bright lighting, freezer cases, lots of electrical devices, or a bright and stimulating environment, Trent was horrible! He would scream. Curl up in a ball on the floor. Grab his head and bury himself in my chest. Grocery store, or convenient store shopping was off the charts stimulation for Trent.

His behavior was dismissed as the behavior of a child with no father in the picture, and an undisciplined mother. I clung to the excuse, and tried harder to be a stronger disciplined, and demanding mother of my youngest child. None-the-less, nothing changed.

When Trent was two, he was hospitalized for pneumonia. Trent constantly had sinus infections, severe coughs, and asthma related symptoms. Even though, doctors said that a two year old couldn't have asthma, he developed severe asthma, and battled pneumonia on several occasions.

It was during that first hospitalization that the E.R. doctor asked me questions about his development. What sounds did he mutter? What words did he say? "Uh," that was all, I said. It was at that moment when the doctor told me that I needed to have his development evaluated that the emotion and realization that something was wrong instantly met me as a lump in my throat and a pang in my chest. Of course, family was there to push that feeling back into it's place, safely dismissed as a the baby of the family.