During these last couple of weeks, James has finally shown an interest in imitating and cataloguing the language of his parents. That's right: Jas has started talking.
He'd never been a quiet baby, so when we say that he didn't talk until now, that's not to say that the house was silent. Jas has always loved to make noises and to fluently speak in his own jabber. Now he's taken it to a whole new level.
It started when about a week and a half ago James pointed to his eye and said "Eye."
We were shocked.
And then he pointed to his ear and said "E-er."
Another indication came while Steph was on the phone with Nick and when ending the conversation with the usual endearments, Jas called out: "Bye!"
As of now, he can say:
eye, ear, nose, mouth, body, more, open, book, juice, binky, sock, hi, bye, icky (which doubles for turkey since he sees them up close and they can indeed be icky!), car, and others that are escaping us for the moment in addition to the words he's mastered previously (diaper, mom, dad, etc.)
Also, if we ask Jas what sound does a lion make, he roars. And it's a good one. While playing with his trains, he says "Choo Choo!"
We are so excited for James to want to express himself in a language he understands and knows that we speak. It's also incredibly adorable. But mostly, we're relieved. In different circumstances, if Jas had been birth defect free since his birth, we still would have consulted a speech therapist to encourage a toddler nearing the age of two and not yet speaking. However, we would have assumed that he would do it when he's ready. We still had (and have) that understanding, except worry over his health is also at the back of our minds.
James' birth was unlike any others. We don't say that to place a rank of importance, but merely to state a fact. Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernias are not that rare: 1 out of 2500 babies are born with CDH which places it with the frequency of Cystic Fibrosis and Spina Bifida (see
the CHERUBS blog for more information or research it
here through Stanford University's well informed site). Even so, every baby presents different problems with CDH to where no CDH child is the same. The doctors and nurses made this very clear when we enquired about their most recent CDH patients and what to expect at the time of Jas' birth. They themselves did not know what to expect, but they tactfully confessed this privy of information after James' discharge. And escaping surgery alive didn't mean that we were done, or more importantly, that James was done.
And here is another hurtle James is leaping, one more sign that CDH might be done, and that James was not only one of the lucky 50% to survive, but to be apart of an even smaller percentage of no other lingering symptoms or other defects piggy-backing on CDH.
Thank you James for your spirit and your happiness. We are thankful for our child, when so many other children do not survive. We weep for them as we cherish our son.
