As always, Tanner provides me with many giggles in a week. Here are a few:

The other day I walked by the playroom and told Tanner that it would be bath time soon. In the sweetest voice he said,

“Mommy – I really bizzy. Don’t bover me.”

He must have learned that from Jim;).

AND he is amazingly smart…

As many people know, if you are driving with me in a car you will be lucky to get to your destination in a timely fashion. I regularly miss my exits. Too much on the brain to concentrate on the mundane you know:). This week I found that Tanner will be quite an asset for me.

We were at the dentist’s office on 83rd and Thunderbird. When we got in the car, I told Tanner that we had to go get Ty’s medicine from the pharmacy (off the frontage road and Greenway) and then we were going to Walmart to get him a prize for being so good at the dentist.

This was a drive that is 20 to 25 minutes. In usual Tanner fashion, he was completely quiet the entire length of the trip. That is until, I passed the Bell road exit. Very nonchalantely from the back seat he said:

“Mommy. You missed it.”

How in the heck did he know I missed my exist? We had been driving for at least 20 minutes in silence so that rules out coincidental timing. A few weeks ago, I did the same thing while my mom was in the car. We had a discussion about missing my exit. Tanner obviously listened intently to that conversation. Can’t slip anything by this kid! The thing I don’t get though is how he knew where we are. We were on the freeway so not a whole lot of landmarks and I know he can’t read (right?) LOL! Who knows! I was plenty impressed and grateful too!

While in my organizational frenzy, Heidi made the mistake of mentioning that all her DVDs and CDs were now properly organized into books. In a matter of a week, I followed suite. Tanner has his own DVD book for his movies – how convenient I thought. Nope. Now that he realizes there are two books, he only wants mine. Movies like Star Wars, and Lord of the Rings, and Spiderman, etc are all in my book so he finds mine more interesting. Today he wanted to see “Toomonga”. Took me a minute to figure out he meant Jumangi. I like Toomonga better. I am raising my magic wand and forevermore declaring the movie name to be Toomonga:)

On a more frustrating note…

Tanner had his hearing test at Phoenix Children’s Hospital this week. The good news is that his ears appear to be fine. They took pictures of the inner ear and did a few tests that all came back perfectly normal.

However, when they did the play test, he struggled. It was really tough to discern if he could hear or not and it had to be judged based off expression. They did a wonderful job presenting what they wanted but he just couldn’t understand.

Here is how it worked. One therapist sat in a small sound room with him and I sat behind him in the corner. The therapist and Tanner both wore headphones. Behind a glass window was another therapist running sound. The two therapists could communicate with each other. In the beginning, the therapist outside of the room would speak into Tanner’s headphones and say “Tanner – put the animal in the box.” Tanner would listen and then perform the action perfectly. Then they advanced to “Tanner – when you hear the birdie sound, put the animal in the box”. Under no circumstance could he perform this action. They tried for about 45 mintues to get him to follow conditional directions but he just didn’t get it. Three different therapists tried working with him but to no avail. I was getting tears in my eyes sitting behind him because he had such a serious expression on his little face and you could tell he was trying so hard to obey but he just didn’t get it. It got to the point that he was nodding his yes to hearing sounds that were never played and even advanced to pointing to the ear he heard it in when they never played it. My heart was breaking watching this.

All the while, he never spoke to them. He would shake his head yes or no but would not speak or smile. Part of this was his shyness kicking it but I have noticed that he has trouble following conditional directions at home. For example, Simon Say’s is absolutely beyond him, or if we play “Go Fish” he never remembers that he has to say “Go Fish”. When we got home from the appointment I was explaining this to Jim and wanted to demonstrate. I got out two blocks and I said “Tanner, when you hear mommy make a birdie sound, stack these blocks okay?”. He was ready. I made the sound. He just looked at me and smiled. “Did you hear me make the birdie sound?” He responds with a smile and say’s “Yep!”. I then say “Okay Tanner you have to stack the block when you hear it okay.” He say’s okay and we start again. Over and over. Finally, I make a long birdie noise and just look at him like “aren’t you supposed to be doing something?” He say’s “Oooohhh THAT is what da birdie say’s!” SHHEEEESHHH! Jim and I just lost it and started laughing after that. He was trying so hard to figure out what in the heck I wanted and decided to affirm me for my wonderful bird noises instead of following the directions.

At any rate, the therapists suggested a speech eval and development eval. We talked about this for awhile and we all agreed that it can wait another year after he has more time to grow and mature (unless we notice more prominent issues). It was quite discouraging to consider that I may have to put a second child in therapy. For now, I am choosing to believe that Tanner just needs more time and these things will get worked out. I don’t want to over react. He is such an intelligent little guy but for whatever reason, has trouble expressing. Luckily, his mommy is an expert expressor LOL so surely he will win this battle eventually. Look at daddy! Mommy has made great in roads with Daddy (the non expressor) over the last decade! Right Jim? LOL.