dreaded going to the pediatrician for my son’s eighteen-month check-up. I just knew that at some point the doctor would get around to asking about my son’s speech. At that time I could count on one hand the amount of words my son had ever uttered and on top of that he didn’t say any of those limited words with even a hint of regularity. As much as I tried to be patient it began to bother me that my son had yet to look me in the eye and call out “Mommy.”

The parenting books that I began to feverishly thumb through and the parenting websites that I skimmed desperate for information, seemed to say the same exact thing: the average child at my son’s age could speak anywhere from 25 to 50 words and by two years old should be able to speak two word phrases.

What? I thought to myself. How could my bright-eyed precocious baby be so far behind the curve? Then with cold clarity I remembered trying from the time my son was seven months old to get him to say simple things like “bye-bye” as friends and family would leave our apartment. Without fail he’d get this tough little look on his face and not bother to open his mouth. No matter how much time I spent trying to get him to say “Hi,” or “Daddy” or even “Night- Night” he would just look right through me. 

It seemed that my son had inherited my latent stubborn streak, or so I hoped. I have a friend whose son, now twelve years old, was the victim of lead poisoning as a toddler, which severely affected his ability to speak to this day. He’s fine otherwise but I can see his frustration as he tries to talk and has to constantly repeat himself because people don’t always understand what he’s saying. I prayed that my baby would not have to go through the same type of struggle.

As I had feared my son’s pediatrician asked the question that I’d been obsessing over, “About how many words does he speak?” he asked peering at me from behind wire rimmed glasses.

I squared my shoulders and pretended to count before saying, “Less then ten.” The doctor’s face revealed nothing. If he’d looked concerned at all I would have spilled my guts about my growing fear that my child needed more help then I could give.

“We should expect definite improvement within the next few months,” he told me firmly. Looking back and forth between the doctor and my son (who apparently thought no one was looking and tried to climb down from the examination table just then) I cannot remember a time when I felt more discouraged, more afraid.

All I wanted was for my son to be normal. More specifically I wanted my son to be able to tell me when he was hungry or thirsty; I wanted to hear the plaintive cry of “Mooommy!!” just once. And for the sake of my own piece of mind, not to mention the dent the cost of diapers made in my wallet, I desperately wanted to start potty training him. Both his pediatrician and I agreed that was a no go considering that my son couldn’t indicate to me when he had to go to the bathroom. Great, I thought to myself. I’ll be on diaper duty until the child is four the way things are headed.

The main problem was that I had no idea how to get through to my son. Being a loving parent is not the same as being a trained speech therapist. Desperate for any nuggets of wisdom I talked to practically every member of my family. The general consensus was that my son would talk when he was ready.

To me this seemed like a nice idea but hardly a comforting one. With the way things were going he wouldn’t be ready to talk until he was heading to kindergarten.  And in the meantime every little baby I ran into that was around his age couldn’t wait to talk, even to a stranger.  

As the months passed with absolutely no change I found the number for a local service that provided speech testing.  The receptionist was a perfectly nice woman who inadvertently scared me to death.

The woman asked questions about my son’s communication skills like, “Does he name things that he sees, like toys?” One by one I answered each question the same exact way, “No. He doesn’t.” My heart felt heavy as a stone as one thought circled around my mind like a spinning top: Something could be wrong with my baby.

She mailed me a packet of information filled with tips and suggestions for building up my son’s language skills. Most of the activities, like playing hide and seek, seemed beyond him, partly because of the speech, but mostly because he was too hyper to remain in one place for more then a few seconds.

Discouraged but unwilling to accept the alternative that my son could have a speech problem or something worse, his father and I continued to try to build up his vocabulary by constant repetition. For all of our efforts by the time he was two years old our son knew exactly one more word: “Yeah.”

During the same time my son began to do a curious thing: he started handing me books and then climbing into my lap, ready to be read to. Almost every book he would hand to me was battered because as an infant he loved to throw them, eat them, and write on them. I was surprised when he began to do this because since he could walk he would never sit still long enough to let anyone read to him.

He would hand me a tattered book, snuggle up against me as if was a comfortable chair and listen as I read to him. I thought it was sweet, and the more he did it the more hopeful and excited I became.

Slowly, one word at a time, he began to speak. I told myself not to get too excited, he had seemed to make progress many times in the past. As low-key as I tried to be I couldn’t hide my excitement the first time I came home and he looked up at me before casually saying, “Hi.” Just that one little word and I thought my heart would melt. We had been trying for more then a year to get him to say that. Later, as my boyfriend left the apartment, without prompting our son said, “Bye-Bye.”

Things moved quickly after that. My son began repeating words that we said. He tried to repeat phrases that we used. And recently he has started calling things by name. One night while I was putting him to sleep, he was playing with my ear and suddenly he cried, “Eeearrr!”

I sat down a few days ago and asked him to say every word that I could ever remember him uttering. To my surprise the list included more then fifty words, all of which he said with no problem at all. I felt such a sense of joy and gratitude then. I knew that there are other parents for whom such a moment of understanding never comes. I hugged my son tightly, fighting back unexpected tears.

I wanted to hold on forever but he started to push me away. A moment later he climbed nimbly off of my bed and was off in search of something to pull down, drag, push or rip. What am I gonna do with this boy? I thought to myself smiling from ear to ear. 

Angelena Alston is a freelance writer living in the suburbs of Manhattan. The mother of a rambunctious two year old boy, she has written articles for family websites. Presently, she is completing her first novel which she hopes will be published within the next few months. She can be reached at angelenaa@verizon.net

Audrey Woulard is a Chicago photographer who specializes in black and white portraitures for babies, children, families and maternity. She services the Chicagoland area, as well as the surrounding suburbs.  She is available for travel out of state. She can reached via www.alwphotography.com.

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MOMMY TOO! MAGAZINE :: DECEMBER 2004