Owen Update

Well it is a new year and we have new goals. I think about last year at this time and the longing I felt to hear the simple things from Owen. I think of how I longed to hear I love you out of his little mouth or to hear him say his name. Wow what a difference from last year and even from just the few months since our trip to UCLA. Owen really is talking now. He will answer questions. He will ask questions. He even has conversations with us, his siblings and his friends.
He is still in school at Wolff in the Early Childhood program, with Mrs. Perez. He sees his school speech therapist three times a week or 30 minutes a session. She is still amazing with him. He has helped me so much with understanding what I need to do to encourage his progress. I know I can ask her the really dumb questions that I have and even if she laughs she will answer them. He sees his outside therapist too. We have had to drop down to only one day a week. But when he goes he is still all business. He goes at 7 am. Which for those who really know Owen understand just how amazing that is. Owen is my little night owl. He does not like to go to sleep. He will sit and color or look at books for hours in his bed instead of sleeping. That is the Barlow in him. And he likes to sleep in. But when I tell him we have speech in the morning, he tries really hard to go to sleep so he can be awake for therapy. Ms. Kelli is still amazing. She is really invested in him. She can not believe the progress in him. She never thought it would be so quick. I am so happy that it is.
Last week we were at my in laws and Aunt Mindie was talking to him. She was asking him all about Christmas and what he got. What he liked. He was able to actually answer her and I didn’t have to “translate” for him.
I am very concerned with Primary. Since we are no longer his teacher, I have to allow someone new into his life. I have kept him so sheltered and guarded from the “real world” I am struggling to open my sweet little man up to someone who isn’t familiar with him or Apraxia. I know I am being silly, but I am a mom who doesn’t want her child hurt. He has the cutest little girls in his class who have NEVER uttered a word about how he speaks. They actually understand a lot of what he says. I lucked out this week a good friend of mine was teaching his class and all week he practiced saying “Sister Truman.” I don’t know that he ever said it to her but he could definitely say it. I did ask him when he got home what he learned today and he was able to tell me. In complete sentences too.
We have a long road ahead of us still. Not everything is intelligible. I still have a hard time once and a while. And the people who don’t see him on a regular basis really struggle still. But the progress is there. He is talking in sentences. Sometimes the sentence structure is a little jumbled. But I am not going to worry about that part of the disorder when the stranger on the street can understand him more.