Des has always been the easiest baby! He rarely ever cries, has been sleeping through the night since he was 4 weeks old, and has spoiled us rotten with his mellow temperament. Think of your easiest child and times that by 5, that's our sweet Dessy boy. He's so peaceful, sweet, and kind. I never thought that his easy going nature would be bad until his easy going nature turned into not interacting.
I think for me I started noticing his eye contact wasn't great as early as 6-9 months. I'd be changing his diaper, holding him, interacting with him, and I'd try to get his attention...but he always seemed to be focused on something else. I remember while I was feeding him his bottle thinking, "I wonder why he's not looking at me. He must just be in his own little world." This has been a thought that has crossed my mind over and over again. I didn't really think anything of it because he was meeting all his other milestones; rolling over, crawling, walking. We didn't see a big change until after his first birthday. He was doing all the cute things babies do at his first birthday; saying Momma and Da-da, waving bye-bye, playing patty cake, but then he slowly stopped doing those things and started to regress. The first one I noticed was that he stopped greeting Marshall at the door when he would get home from work. Before his regression he would hear the garage door open, get so happy, and run to the door saying, "Da-Da! Da-Da! Da-Da!" Now it's like he doesn't even notice and it's Marshall who has to come to him and show him he's home. Then he stopped waving bye-bye, and we couldn't get him to play patty-cake with us. At the time I just thought he was going through a phase. Me and Marshall were both working full time, but only needed a babysitter for a few hours every week. I thought, "Maybe he just misses us...? But, some parents have to work full-time all the time. I'm sure it's something he'll grow out of."
One day I remember calling for Desmond and he didn't turn his head to even acknowledge that I was saying his name over and over and over. It crossed my mind that it was weird that he didn't know his own name, but again I found myself thinking, "He's still young, maybe that's something he'll start doing when he's closer to 18 months old." Then he started getting into everything, like 1 year old's do. I would say, "No, no, no, you can't touch that Des." and he wouldn't even look at me. I'd say things like this repeatedly and still nothing.
Trying to get Des to interact with us has always been tough. He'll be sitting playing with his toys and I'll go over to play with him. I'll sit next to him and most of the time he won't look up to see that I'm even there; he'll just keep playing. If he's playing with a puzzles (for instance) I'll put out my hand in front of his face and say something like, "Can I play with one too?" and he'll just keep on his merry way like I'm not even there. Most days I have to grab his hand and get him to hand me things or go over and grab his sweet cheeks to get him to focus on my face. And of course, the initial worry that started this rocket ship to the moon, the speech delay.
For those who don't know, we have a bit of a speech delay history on my side of the family. I didn't talk until I was 3 and my little brother didn't start talking until he was well into being 4. However there are good reasons that we were a bit slow. My older sister was chatty from the very beginning says my sweet mother. She started talking full blown sentences when she was 18 months old. Jillian was my translator for the longest time. Jill would say things like, "Tay-Tay wants a PB&J Mommy" when I was still just jabbering my own baby language. As for my little brother McKay, his story is much the same. He's a twin and my little sister Malory would do all the talking for him. I think the big difference between my situation and Desmond's is the interaction. From what my mom has told me I had my own little language, but I was very playful and interactive. I would point for the things I needed to get my needs met, but our Des doesn't do this. He doesn't point, he doesn't look at the thing you point to him, again he's just in his own little world.
I don't want this to be a, "Oh my poor baby" post, because there are a lot of really great things he is doing. He was recently tested in a lot of different skill areas for his age; things like cognitive skills, language skills, social skills, self help skills, and motor skills. His results were as follows:
- Language: 9 months old
- Cognitive: 12 months old
- Social/Emotional: 12 months old
- Self Help: 12 months old
- Motor: 28 months old
- Fine Motor: 28 months old
My Dessy is the motor skills champion!!! He has always been so coordinated! His ability to crawl, climb, run, throw a ball, use a fork and spoon would put all other kids his age to SHAME! He especially LOVES swimming at Grandmas! The first time we put him in a floatie he was instantly able to float and keep his balance. I was so amazed and so was everyone else there! We were all shocked at how coordinated he was in the pool and we are still amazed by the things he's able to do! We have been working on baby sign language with him for the past 4 months and he's finally signing "more". This past week was a huge victory as he's finally starting to do it on his own.
It would be very easy to get discouraged and focus on all the things he's not doing, but I can't help but rejoice in the good and be grateful for the little steps of progress that we've seen since starting this journey back in March. My focus and goal is to live for today and not worry about tomorrow. Each day we have with Des is a blessing. As my sweet mother would say, "Taylor, don't barrow trouble!" All of these things we are seeing will change, and there is so much good to come. Look out world we're coming for ya! Just one day at a time.
