And I am aware that our differences aren't the hugest differences that people deal with.
And I ended that sentence with a preposition. And made up an adjective.
Anyhoo...
I am not talking about all the adoption-related loss and attachment and fear and anxiety stuff. Those are mega-huge in our little world, but are not the obvious differences.
And I am not just talking about our family's racial differences. Those are obvious too. We get looked at everywhere we go. Remember the mean staring people? We don't get that so much anymore. But we do turn some heads. We don't match, so I get it.
But our two youngest children have cleft issues, which means that they have visible facial scars and they can be difficult to understand when they talk. David's scar especially gets noticed, and although Sammy's scar is less obvious his mouth and nose are not symmetrical.
I worry about a few things... well a billion things
I worry that people will think our cleft-affected kids are stupid.
There, I said it.
I worry that our kids will be perceived to be less intelligent (in spite of the racist "they are Asian so they are smart" comments) (yes, yes it IS racist) because of their speech differences. Our friends and family might disagree with me because they can understand most of what our boys say, but I am with our munchkins most of the time. I see how people react as soon as they ask one of the munchkins a question and the munchkin answers. So often after the munchkin speaks, the asker will pause... and their smile will drop a smidge, and they will just stare with their mouth open at the answering munchkin. And I will translate so our kids don't feel bad. I don't want them to become self-conscious of talking. David already will fall back on answering with sign language (and many times the asker has the same puzzled look because David doesn't understand that not everyone knows sign language), or he won't even try to talk, but will just give a "thumbs-up" sign. People think the thumbs-up sign is so cute. I don't. I know he is not talking because he is embarrassed that he can't speak intelligibly and be understood. It breaks this mama's heart.
But our munchkins have come so very far since we met them. Yay God!
Have you ever known a really smart person with cerebral palsy who couldn't speak perfectly clearly? Or a really amazing person with a really heavy accent? That's what I'm talking about. The assumptions people make when a person can't speak clearly. The person with c.p. could be equal in intelligence but they could be perceived to have cognitive delays based on their speech.
So we work on our speech sounds. A lot. Like alot a lot. I should do more one-on-one drills like our private speech therapist wants us to, but I do so much incidental focus on the speech sounds she is working on -- and I think it is still helping. And I am the only adult in our house who works on speech with our kids. Some days it feels like a monumental task, and I get worn down and discouraged by sloppy talk.
Speech articulation work is an all-day, every day affair.
It is exhausting.
And frustrating.
For everyone.
David will probably have another surgery that will probably have a pretty intense recovery (again) in our near future, and that doesn't even seem so bad compared to our articulation work...
Praying that the next surgery (stay tuned for updates!) for David will help him make tremendous improvement in his speech intelligibility. And praying that Sammy continues to make great strides in his speech.
Praising God for his goodness and grace in our little world!
(((hugs))),
chris
Can all your worries add a single moment to your life? And if worry can’t accomplish a little thing like that, what’s the use of worrying over bigger things?
Luke 12:25-26
