Sometimes I forget how interested people are in how we are doing. I forget until I'm asked the same questions over and over and find myself explaining the same things over and over, and that is usually when I realize that I should put it all out there on the blog so that everyone can read it at once.

Because here's the thing...

I don't think I've given a true update on Tennyson since before Maggie was born and we were in the middle of all the audiologist appointments to make sure that he was hearing the way he was supposed to. Which he does.

And then Maggie was born, and his speech took the back burner for a little while, and I stopped posting his progress on our blog because, well, I was busy.

So here is what has been going on.

In June, we saw a vocabulary boom. Tennyson went from 15 words to more than we could count in about a month. It was amazing. We figured out that he learned words the best by using flash cards, and once we figured that out, he really started building a big vocabulary.

As he was doing this, the gap between his receptive and expressive speech became obvious to us. When it comes to speech delays, there are two categories to look at. Receptive is how much they understand, and expressive is how much they say. Tennyson was always behind in both categories, but all the sudden his expressive was surpassing his receptive, and so we scaled things back and focused less on the vocabulary and more on trying to get him to follow directions and answer simple questions.

Six more months have now gone by, and Tennyson is still making a lot of progress. He can now answer most "yes/no" questions. He can follow a lot of one step directions. He is just barely starting to put two words together to describe his toys. He has started to use phrases like "where are you?" and "here you go" and "there it is". He is really starting to use his words to request things more, which is wonderful, and really reduced the amounts of tantrums we hear every day. Right now, we are really working on trying to get him to answer "or" questions and to follow more complex directions. We are also encouraging him to continue putting more words together.

So that's pretty much where we are at with his speech.

But, we've recently added more therapy to our plate. Those who know Tennyson well know that he is an extreme clean freak. Like he cries when he gets one drop of water on his hands. He's also a very picky eater. For a long time, we've accepted this as a quirk, but the older he got, the more pronounced his issues became, and the more it was hindering his development. For example, his obsession with not getting messy means that he still cannot feed himself with a spoon or drink from a cup because one spill sends him running for the hills. His speech therapist, who we love, had started to notice that his issues were setting him back as well and recommended we get him evaluated by an occupational therapist. So we did.

What we've learned is that Tennyson has what is referred to as "sensory processing disorder". In a nutshell, his sensory system (sight, smell, touch, taste, vision) isn't quite working right, and it gets overloaded very easily. His sense of touch and taste are hypersensitive, which is why the goopy textures and foods overwhelm him, and so he became a "sensory avoider" which means that in order to not get so overwhelmed, he just avoids the situation altogether. It's why he only eats a limited number of things and why finger painting is pretty much the last thing he ever would want to do. His senses can't quite process the information they are receiving. This is also why he screams bloody murder during baths, or when we try to brush his hair or teeth. It's why he doesn't like waffle knit shirts and doesn't leave his socks on for long.

So now on top of the speech therapy, and his teacher (did I mention that when he turned two, he was far enough behind that he qualified as special ed and now he has a special teacher assigned to him?), we are going to start seeing an occupational therapist. She is going to help us introduce new foods and get him to be okay with a little bit of a mess so that eventually we can teach him how to self feed. We are aware that we have an extremely long road ahead of us with this one. For right now, we are working on just letting him have the food he hates on his plate. Eventually the goal is to get him to smell it, then touch it, then lick it, then taste it. And it's the same with other messes. Right now, we are just spending ten minutes a day being in the same area as something messy and not running away.

I feel like in the past year, I've learned more than Tennyson has. I had a good laugh with our speech therapist the other day because I started college wanting to be a speech therapist, and after deciding against it, it's pretty much what I spend most my time doing now anyway. I should have just stuck with it, I guess. Most of all, though, I think that this whole process has taught me patience. I can't force Tennyson to do anything on my timeline, as much as I may want to. And Mike said something the other day that I've thought a lot about since. He said that in some ways, we are lucky that Tennyson has delays because we are able to better appreciate and celebrate the small accomplishments. You know what? He is totally right. I know every mom loves when they get to hear their kid call them "mama" for the first time, but I don't know if it comes anywhere near my joy of hearing it after waiting for 27 months. And the other day, I was playing cars with Tennyson and I almost teared up as he took them out of the bin and said "red car, yellow car, blue car..." because we have been working so hard for so long that hearing him put two words together repeatedly like that was wonderful. A week ago, Tennyson took three bites of a hot dog, and Mike and I were flying high for days. "Remember when Tennyson ate some hot dog?" we'd say over and over again. It's a special kind of pride and joy when you have to work so hard to have those moments. Because we are working hard.

And little by little, it is paying off.

oh, and her arms and her belly, and it even seeps into her neck roll and climbs down her back.

lady needs a bath after every meal.

which is okay by me because i enjoy her naked little fat rolls.

and i love the smell of freshly washed baby.

and somehow, a hooded towel makes any baby instantly twenty times more adorable.

it's already been half a year.

half a year of enjoying this smile every day.

and making fun of that blasted tongue that she can't seem to keep in her mouth.

things our little miss mj has been up to lately:

-she has two teeth, on the bottom. they came in about a week apart.

-she has been a big fan of food. she likes purees (something her big brother hated), gerber wheels, baby mums, and teething biscuits. she's still trying to figure out puffs. she makes a mess when she eats. often she gets two baths a day.

-she has become a pro at spinning in circles on the floor. she's been trying to get up onto all fours, which mainly results in her scooting backwards and getting stuck places like under the crib, or dresser, or couch.

-she loves to scream. she screams to laugh, she screams to get attention, she screams when she is hungry, and she screams just to scream. she has also started jabbering on and on and usually stops in the middle of her conversation to start blowing bubbles with her mouth. then she'll jabber on some more.

-she's been chunking up. like a fool. she now weighs 20 which is in the 95th percentile. we just upgraded her to a convertible car seat because her little carrier only allows for babies up to 22 pounds, and she was getting too close for comfort. she's comfortably in 12 month clothes.

-she has not been sleeping through the night yet. we are still only getting 3 hour stretches over here at the fiske house. eventually she's going to have to cry it out and learn that she is capable of going more than three hours without chugging an entire bottle, but not until we are at my parent's house for the holidays and she can cry without waking big brother up.

-she remains a giggle monster, and it isn't hard to get a laugh or a smile out of her. if only i could tell you how many strangers have stopped me to comment on my happiest baby in the world. if only they could see her the instant she got the teeniest bit hungry. oh what a different story they'd tell.

we love our maggie.
i can't wait to see what the next half year holds for her, and for us.
i hope it holds more sleep.
and i hope she starts to sit on her own soon.

in just another blink of my eye, it is going to be birthday party time.
slow down, time, you are flying by.