A lot about Charlie

Time for a random Charliebug update!  Look out - this is a long one; I wrote a lot of it a few days ago but was too lazy to add the pictures.  And since then I've learned we have more to share about our littlest dude...

If you are lucky enough to change Charlie's diaper, you may notice he is saying something that sounds an awful lot like "mama (or dada) poop."  For a kid who doesn't say a lot of words, that may seem like a strange thing to come out of his mouth.  Well, what he's doing is singing a song probably called "Who Pooped His Drawers?"  Scott heard Charlie Sheen's character singing it during his brief stint as a children's songwriter on Two and 1/2 Men.  So he started warbling the lovely tune every time he changed Charlie's #2s, which has now resulted in a running joke that goes "Who pooped his drawers?  Did Mama poop her drawers?"  Charlie loves it... his version goes "mama poop."  Then he laughs hysterically when we deny it.  Bathroom humor already!

Speaking of Charlie not saying a lot of words: he has started speech therapy.  We had him evaluated through the school district a few weeks ago, and weren't too surprised when he qualified.  While there's a huge range of normal, someone his age should be speaking about 50 words and 2 word sentences.  Charlie has about 30 words, but most of them are sounds more than words (i.e. ball is "buh"), they are a lot of similar sounds, and most people can't understand much of what he says.  So here we go! 

We've had two visits so far, and will only have a couple more this summer; once the school year kicks in he'll meet with the therapist once a week.  The best part - it's at home!  The visits have gone great; Heather easily built a rapport and routine with him, and he loves having her sit down and focus entirely on him!  On the first visit he was climbing into her lap in minutes, especially after she played cars with him for a while.  The second visit she commented she can tell he's more comfortable with her already, as he was showing her his stubborn side.  Charlie is not the sort of kid who likes to do things when requested; he'd much prefer to go his own way and on his own terms.  But I'm sure he's not the first mulish two year old they've worked with!  :)

The evaluation process was interesting, especially since they didn't just ask about his communication skills, they were required to review all of his milestones - motor skills and all.  For me it was a unique opportunity to see his little personality shine through - how he'd react to requests from two strangers!  He was surprisingly cooperative, except when the objects the testers used were cars; then he just wanted to zoom them around, not pick out the one that looked just like the other one.

On the test where he had to put together  a basic puzzle, he struggled with one of the 5 pieces, and moved on to the last two.  The pathologist thought he was done and started to take the puzzle away, noting that he had missed one, when he yelled "UH-OH" until she gave it back to he could get that last piece in.  :)

The basic test that he had to complete for his expressive language (i.e. ability to talk) was to name the object when shown 8 pictures.  I think he said two of the words correctly (car and ball!), but wasn't able to do the other six.  But it was fascinating to hear and see how he responded to those: when shown a comb he simply raised his hand to his hair and mimed combing.  When shown a bed, he did his funny snoring noise (the two testers laughed out loud); a bird was "caw-caw."  Even though he was clearly failing the test, the speech pathologist told me she was going to keep going because she wanted to see what else he'd come up with.

Anyway... the morale of the speech therapy story is that while it's clear Charlie understands what we're saying, he's having one heck of a time using words.  And while most of the time he has no trouble letting us know what he wants, it's becoming more frequent he gets frustrated that he can't communicate what he wants to, the way we want him to.  So we're hoping to get this taken care of before it becomes an issue.  We'll keep you posted!

And here is the new part - Charlie is going to have tubes put in his ears next week.  No, he hasn't had a lot of ear infections; he's had a whopping one.  But the speech people recommended we get his hearing tested; when I took him in yesterday the first thing the audiologist did was check if he had fluid behind his eardrums - and wa-la, he did.  To make what is a long story short - he also had fluid in one ear at his 2 year old check up in April; so with that information the ENT doc we saw recommended the tubes.  Having fluid in your ears causes minor hearing loss; so knowing he has it now and had it in there two months ago, combined with the speech delay, is enough to recommend tubes.

To say we're a little frustrated is to put it mildly; we have friends whose son had essentially this same experience - fluid in his ears regularly that was discovered when he was two, with a speech delay as a result.  So I asked his pediatrician about it at his two year check-up when I mentioned his speech delay, and even told her I was concerned specifically based on our friends' experience.  And despite the fact that she found fluid in his ear, she told me not to worry.  I'm so glad I ignored that advice and got Charlie evaluated anyway!

Anyway, the ENT doc today assured me there wasn't anything we could have done; that at any given point 5 out of 10 young kids have fluid in their ears!  It's only a problem if it's chronic, which appears may be the case with Charlie.  And, of course, he cautioned me not to be optimistic; while there are some "miracle cases" where kids get tubes put in and 2 weeks later they're talking a mile a minute, that isn't the typical situation.  We just hope it helps a little!

Whew.  So that's the long speech-related story.  Tubes will go in after the 4th; we'll let you know how it goes!

All of these pictures are from our adventures outside on a 90+ degree day last week.  I couldn't stop taking pictures of Charlie; he was LOVING every part of the water fun.  And he remains fearless; in one of the pictures you can kind of see how he goes down the slide.  It's not enough to just sit down and slide; he grabs onto the sides and flings himself down - kind of like the bobsledders get going!

Our youngest is showing a very strong preference for men these days.  On the weekends I can barely go near him - everything is "daddy daddy daddy!"  A couple weeks ago I had to just sit and relax in a lounge chair by the pool and watch Scott, Zach, and Charlie swim.  If I tried to help out and play with Charlie while Scott tossed Zach in the air, he'd scream and yell "ow" so hysterically I was worried someone was going to call CPS!  (No, I wasn't hurting him, for some reason he went through a phase where he said "ow" when he cried... who knows???)

Charlie is a champion snuggler.  He happily gives hugs, and will usually snuggle right in with his head on your shoulder.  And if you're really lucky, he'll follow up with a big smooch right on your lips!

Charlie has discovered ketchup.  'Nuff said.  

We're starting to see some of the "terrible" of the twos.  Charlie is, in general, a pretty easy-going kid.  But he has developed a new reaction to being told no or otherwise prevented from doing what he wants - he hits you.  It's almost like an instinct, and even if I'm 10 feet away, he'll run up and try to swat me in the legs.  Charming, huh?  At least if I tell him he has to be gentle, he'll stop and then give me a hug.  But I still hope this is a short phase!

And while Charlie LOVES to play with the older kids in the neighborhood, he seems to have an aversion to people his size.  I noticed it at the Children's Museum, and a few times since then - if a child his age/size gets too close, his automatic reaction is to reach out and give them a little push.  Not a shove with two hands, just a casual reach with his one hand, and a relatively gentle push.  Kinda like "hey, don't get too close, this is my territory."  Another one I hope he outgrows quickly!

And I think I mentioned before how much Charlie loves face-timing (video-conferencing) on the iPad.  But all he wants to do is talk to his grandfathers. When he sees us get it, he starts yelling "pah-pah" - his word for grandpa.  He goes so far as to say "nooooo" when he sees one of his grandmothers appear on the screen!  Little stinker. 

Last weekend we took the boys to a local "entertainment complex" - a term that was a bit grandiose for what it was!  But it had go-karts, bumper boats, mini-golf, batting cages, and a driving range, so lots for us to do!  Mini-golf was interesting, since Charlie decided it was his job to chase our balls down and grab them as quickly as possible so he could bring them back to us proudly.  But his favorite activity, by far, was the go-carts.  I wish we could have had a video camera on his face the entire time - he was laughing in delight on every turn, waving at Scott and Zach as we went by, hanging on to his little steering wheel with his hair blowing in the breeze.  The happiest boy you've ever seen.  So darn cute.