(What's the) Story Morning Glory?

I am a morning person.  Not the type of morning person who wakes up at the crack of dawn, or never hits the snooze button, but more the type who is wide awake, somewhat coherent and perky shortly after they awaken, to the point where it annoys others.  As a child, in a family full of self-proclaimed night owls, I was often told to stop singing at the top of my lungs at first thing, because in my mom's words, "It's way too early for you to be so loud!  Take it down a notch."  I'm also fairly certain that I was the reason for my parents rule that on weekends, unless the house was on fire, you can't leave your room until 8AM and you can't wake up mom and dad until at least 9AM.

As I grew up I learned to be lower key in the morning for the sake of those around me, particularly before they enjoyed their morning coffee.  This prepared me for life with my husband, Chris, one of the crankiest morning people I have ever met, someone who gets annoyed if he runs into someone he knows on the subway in the morning because, "It's too early for jibber jabber".  The thing is, Chris is somewhat capable of getting himself ready in the morning.  His offspring, Jack, is not. In fact more than a handful of ECE workers have told me that they actively avoid interacting with Jackie Bear (aptly named) until he's been awake for at least twenty minutes post nap.

Dinosaur Jack, His bark is far worse than his bite!

So, how do you wake a bear, and get him ready for daycare in the morning in fifteen minutes or less?

1. BE VERY VERY QUIET....make sure that parental unit(s) are completely ready for work (i.e. lunches packed, make-up on) before beginning operation "POKE THE BEAR"
2. If you have other, more morning positive children, get them ready before the bear.
3. Lay out clothes in advance...maybe have a second set ready for when they randomly refuse to wear a shirt because it's yellow.  Hunting for socks in the morning is a huge waste of time.
4. The most convenient thing about a child crying about not wanting to brush their teeth is that they've opened wide so you can provide "the assist".
5. I often get Jack ready while he lays on the bed offering him the promise of two or three minutes of sleep if he cooperates, passive resistance I can work with.  It's when he starts undressing and telling me to, "Scwam Wabbit" that we run into issues.
6. Be prepared for subtle manipulation.  Sometimes Jack goes in for a hug, which is nice, but he's really just trying to fall asleep again.  
7. Don't engage in ridiculous arguments, it just wastes time....of course he can't have gum drops for breakfast, just ignore these requests and carry on.    
8. Some juice and crackers in the car can double as "breakfast", particularly if you know they're being fed again at pre-school in half an hour.
9. Pick your battles...If he wants to wear PJ's to school let him, princess costume, why not?...I let Molly wear a house coat to daycare one day and it inspired a monthly Pyjama day...cause we're trendsetters like that.
10. Understand that they will make you late, especially on Wednesdays...

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Lost for Words

I have been worried about Jack and his speech, or lack thereof, for a while now.  When he turned two he wasn't meeting the speech and communication checklists set forward on what he should be able to do at age two.  To see what a child should be able to do communication wise by age two via Toronto Preschool and Language Services click here.  Specifically, he didn't have 100-150 words, the ability to use two pronouns, and he could only name and point to two body parts.  I was concerned especially with the direct, unfortunate comparison between Molly who has many, many words.

This was something that was flagged as a concern by myself, our sitter A. as well as one of our ECE workers. Chris on the other hand was less worried, but supportive of anything we could do to help Jack communicate and put my mind at ease.  At the two year doctor's appointment I voiced my concerns to our nurse practitioner and she provided a referral to a healthy child assessment a few weeks later where Jack would be tested in a series of stations for hearing, vision, emotional well being and assessed by a speech therapist.  She thought that it was probably nothing, I've been previously told that most speech/language development issues resolve themselves by four anyway, but it was worth getting an assessment and get additional tips on how to help encourage speech.

A boy and a boat

In the three weeks between the doctor's appointment and the assessment Jack's speech seemed to sky rocket.  He learned 30-40 new words including: apple, boat, Molly, pooped, raspberries, raisins, bum, book, crayon, monkeys, shirt, pyjamas and the names of his favourite staff at daycare.  He started excelling at toilet training and started defining what was his, his sister's mom's or dad's...the beginning of "mine".*  I later learned from Chris's mum that both Chris and his sister didn't speak more than a few words until after their second birthdays and that she too had scheduled such an appointment (which she later cancelled) for Chris's sister who showed the same kind of warp speed improvement after the clock struck two.

Chris asked me if I was still going to go through with the assessment.  My answer an emphatic YES.  Some of the burst of verbage was an age ready anomaly, but a lot of it was due to implementing suggestions from our nurse practitioner and the help from our daycare staff.  His current primary ECE worker has been so vigilant about making him use his words and we are so thankful for her help.

We signed into the assessment centre shortly before 9AM.  For the next hour we visited multiple evaluation stations where Jack was tested, played and our interactions were observed.  We now know that there are no hearing problems so far with our Jack.**  Our interaction with the speech therapist was great.  She had a set of toys out on her table and Jack sat and played while we chatted about his number of words (at this point 60-80) and recent speech spurt. 

Basically Jack was assessed as a normal, quiet child who's a bit slower to speak.  He interacts well with adults and other children, makes eye contact, he tried to negotiate stealing the speech therapist's glasses and "shared" crayons with her.  When asked he was able to point and name five body parts (eyes, mouth, foot, belly and bum).  I was assured that his sudden surge of development is normal, for him.  Our attempts to separate Molly and Jack so they can have more one on one time with an adult to focus on making him speak are encouraged and should continue.  We could also get flash cards or use books to make him point out and name different pictures on a regular basis.

All said and done I was pleasantly surprised and encouraged that everything we are doing is working well and we can allow Jack to go at Jack's pace.  It was good to get an unbiased professional opinion from someone who could see Jack outside of the parallel between alpha twin Molly.  I now have the phone number and email of someone who's met and evaluated Jack should we hit a stall on progress for a number of weeks in a row or if things aren't going as they should when we hit the 30 month milestone checklist.  When I spoke to our daycare about our experience they were thrilled that we had arranged for an assessment and not waited until preschool, as many parents do, and will continue to make Jack's speech development a priority.

After an hour of being impeccably good for a two year old, Jack decided that he was done behaving.  On our way back to the car after the assessments he felt it was time to tear off his shoe and lay on the ground in an act of passive resistance to walking, directly in front of the sketchiest guy on the street.  Thank goodness he had the words to yell, "NO WALK" as I tried to drag him away.

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*Which I'm certain we will grow to regret.
**Note hearing problems in a toddler are completely different than listening problems.