It’s always interesting to see what search terms lead people to my blog. Lately, severe phonological disorder has been a popular one reminding me that I ought to write another update on our grandson, Drew. He has come such a long way in the eight and a half months since his condition was diagnosed. In fact, at his last speech assessment, he was upgraded from severe to moderate! The therapist even went so far as to say that he’s on the mild end of moderate now.

When Drew was here a couple of weeks ago, it was wonderful to hear him speaking in complete sentences. His pronunciation isn’t perfect yet but he’s much easier to understand than he was just a few months ago and it’s wonderful to be able to carry on a conversation with him. At times, when his mouth can’t keep up with his thoughts, words are dropped and replaced with a “hm” sound. Apparently this is fairly normal for children who’ve been in speech therapy though so we’re not too worried about it. He will likely have another round of therapy sometime this fall or winter which should help deal with some of these residual problems.

Knock knock jokes have become a recent favourite of Drew’s. In typical three year old fashion, he doesn’t quite get how the jokes are supposed to work but he loves them anyway. Here’s an example: “Knock knock” “Who’s there?” “Drew Bug! Blah blah!” followed by hysterical laughing! How could you not laugh with him?

Drew riding "duper, duper fast yellow bike"

At sixteen months, Drew’s little sister, Jami-Lee, is becoming quite a chatterbox. While it’s mostly babbling at this point, she’s coming out with more and more recognizable words and it won’t be long before she’s carrying on conversations with big brother “Do”.

Before our first grandchild was born, we decided that I would be called Gram to distinguish me from his other grandmother who was already Grandma to his three cousins. I was delighted when, at 15 months old, Drew first called me Am. As time went by, however, and his speech didn’t improve, we learned that this was actually a symptom of a severe phonological disorder. He dropped the initial sounds from almost every word making his speech virtually unintelligible.

As Drew began speech therapy and he and Melaina worked diligently at home, we began to see a marked improvement in his speech. I was confident that the day would come when he would finally call me Gram and today was that day! My heart nearly burst with joy! The r isn’t quite clear yet but it’s there and the G is as clear as a bell.

Each time we’ve seen Drew over the past few months, we’ve noticed progress. Not only is his pronunciation so much clearer now but he’s also speaking in simple sentences and using lots of descriptive words… “big white garbage truck” “Drew’s sandals on”  “play train games” and “baby ducks swimming” are a few of the phrases that we heard today. Life must be much less frustrating for him now that he’s able to express his feelings, ask for the things he wants and tell Mommy when something hurts. It’s definitely a delight for us to be able to carry on a conversation with him!

We spent this morning at Calgary’s Bowness Park. I hadn’t been there since I skated on the lagoon during my university years but Melaina and the children have gone quite often lately and Drew was anxious to show us the baby ducks and geese.

I love city parks; natural oases in the midst of the rush and bustle of urban life. I truly appreciate those who had the foresight to set aside these tracts of land so that future generations could enjoy a taste of nature without travelling far from home. As we strolled along the banks of the stream, in addition to the ducks and geese, we stopped to enjoy a squirrel that seemed to be as interested in watching us as we were in watching it.

Of course, we had to stop at one of the playgrounds and play on the slides before leaving the park.

Hmm... how does this thing work?

Like this?

Ready!

Where does the time go? Could it be that it was already three years ago that the phone rang in our hotel room in Nikko, Japan and we learned that we were grandparents? What an exciting moment that was! Andrew David Richard Graham had been born to our daughter, Melaina, and her husband, Aaron.

Almost exactly two years later, Drew’s baby sister, Jami-Lee Marie, entered the world making shared birthday parties a definite possibility. This time, instead of being half way around the world, I was in the delivery room! Another amazing memory!

Melaina is no stranger to joint birthday parties. For several years, she and her brother, Nathan, just eleven months younger than her, shared their parties. They had the same friends and until they were old enough to want sleepovers, it made perfect sense. We usually held the party close to Melaina’s birthday at the end of August because we were often away from home for Nathan’s in July. He turned six in the Yukon, seven on PEI, and nine in California.

Jami-Lee’s birthday was on Thursday and Drew’s is today. We had their party yesterday. Uncle Nathan came down from Edmonton, their other grandma was here as were their Auntie Dani and her family and several friends from their church. Drew was especially delighted with his Thomas the Tank Engine cake.

Trains are Drew’s passion these days. I’ve had to learn the names of all his engines; Thomas, James, Spencer, and Percy. We added Henry to the collection yesterday. Each day while we’re here, we lay out his wooden tracks and spend lots of time playing trains. I also have a special folder of train photos on my laptop just for Drew. In spite of his phonological disorder, his speech is improving steadily and he has no problem asking to look at the train pictures. He even knows exactly which icon to point to on my desktop!

Jami-Lee is walking now and climbing, climbing, climbing! She’s definitely her mother’s daughter in that respect. I remember finding Melaina perched in various spots where little ones ought not to be and she’s the child who escaped serious injury when she climbed the drawers of her dresser and it fell over on her! Jami was a bit overwhelmed by the number of people crowded into her small livingroom and spent much of the party on my lap. What a lucky Gram I am! She loved opening gifts and was especially thrilled by the toy piano her mommy and daddy gave her. Perhaps she’s also inherited Melaina’s musical talent. Only time will tell.

One of the first things we wanted to do when we got back from our recent trip to Japan was to make another trip; this time to Calgary to see the grandchildren that we hadn’t seen since Christmas! After just 8 nights in our own bed, off we went and what fun we had.

It’s amazing how much young children change in such a short time. At just 10 1/2 months old, Jami-Lee is standing on her own and taking those first tentative steps!

Even more exciting is the change in Drew’s speech, however. Diagnosed with a severe phonological disorder in early January, he hasn’t started formal speech therapy yet but Melaina has been working with him every day and he’s making wonderful progress! He still has a long way to go but not only is he saying lots of words more clearly than before, he’s also started putting them together into 2 and 3 word phrases. It was such a delight to hear him shout out “Grandpa’s turn”, “Gram’s turn” and “Drew’s turn” as we slid down the slide at the playground. He still has trouble with the G sound at the beginning of our names, but it was quite clear what he was saying.

Now we’re back home again. We’ll be sleeping in our own bed tonight but only for three nights this time! We’re off to a church board retreat on Friday. As someone at my Sunday School board meeting said tonight, those DeBocks just never stay home!