Communication

With Luke this has become a BIG thing.  It’s one thing if your child can’t walk at the age of 4, but for him to also have limited communication skills also…that is totally different.  I know I’m not alone out there, but there are times…like last night where I felt so alone and frustrated.  Luke has been sick on and off since Dec 1, 2011.  We get over one thing and something else comes up.  We made two trips to the ER last week, and finally got an answer for his cough and fever, Bronchiolitis.  So we started breathing treatments which, thank the Lord, helped him tremendously.  His fever went down and his cough has grown better and better…and I thought we were on the road to recovery until last night.

After Luke was asleep for an hour, he started crying.  Sometimes he does this in his sleep or will cry for 5 minutes and go back to sleep.  First, I tried getting him up and holding him a while and then putting him back in bed…that didn’t work.  Then I tried getting him up, giving him Ibuprofen and holding him a while and putting him back in bed….that didn’t work.  Then I tried getting him up and holding him even longer…to let him calm down good….and that didn’t work.  Finally I got my pillow and blanket and crawled into bed with him…which kept him quiet…but he didn’t fall asleep.  After 40 minutes of getting poked, pulled, and pushed…I finally left his bed at 12:20am when he tried crawling over me to get to the “door/gate” of his bed…so he could play with it.  The good news was he only cried for about 5 minutes and was quiet and I assume went right to sleep.  It was still a long night….and still frustrating.

You remember those early days when having a baby?  How tired you are and when the baby doesn’t go to sleep and you are so tired you just start crying because your exhausted and you just don’t know what to do?  Yep…those fun days!  That is how it felt. 

Last week, when I was on the phone with a nurse and we were trying to get Luke’s temp down from 105.3, I was trying to explain how Luke can’t communicate and she said “kind of like having a baby”.  So right she was, it is like having a 4 year old baby. 

What do you do when a baby cries?  First you check their safety (any fingers pinched?), then you check the diaper (maybe change it just in case), then you try feeding them, and if all that fails you just try to rock and sooth them.  That is so much what it is like.  Only Luke is starting to communicate a little.

In fact I have to share how wonderful it was when a few weeks ago Luke came home from school and he started crying at me.  I know…that sounds silly.  But it wasn’t that he was crying, but what he was doing while he was crying.  I noticed that he put his feet in front of himself on the floor and started hitting his shoes.  So…I took off his shoes….and he still wasn’t happy…but after he hit his socks…I took those off too…and sure enough he just crawled off like nothing happened!  It may seem small…but it was so great!!  For a kid who doesn’t point and things he wants, he finally figured out that he could tell me what he wanted by touching his shoes!

Now this has become a daily thing….and I’m wondering if the braces he wears are starting to hurt him after he walks for so long….but I’m still glad he is telling me he wants his shoes off!