apraxia: one year later.

a little over a year ago...

payton was diagnosed with childhood apraxia of speech.

i cried.

i pouted.

i screamed that it is not fair.

i had a bit of a poor me moment.

and i moved on.

because baby girl needed me to move on.

she needed me to put a plan into place.

a plan that would hopefully one day allow her to be understood.

by us.

by her peers.

by anyone that she comes into contact with.

and so i do as only i know how to do.

and i butted it in the head.

full force.

for the past year...

we have gone to private therapy four times a week.

yeah... momma is a wee bit burnt out.

mondays and wednesdays.

private therapy with a PROMPT trained therapist.

we drive 45 minutes each way to see her.

our God send.

tuesdays and thursday.

private therapy.

ST. OT. PT.

among speech therapy she gets at school.

some will argue that less is more.

sorry, but i do not agree.

 i wholeheartedly believe...

that payton is where she is today...

because of the consistent, intense therapy we have done.

and we still have so far to go.

but baby...

we have come so far.

here is payton repeating an apraxia word list one year ago.

and here she is repeating that same word list now.

there are so many of these words she can now say more clearly.

she can put more of those consonant and vowel sounds together.

apraxia is a motor planning disorder.

there are several consonant and vowel combinations she still cannot do.

and there are some words where she still drops the final sound.

like the -se in please.

or the -t in eat.

or...

she tries so hard to get that final sound...

that she brings it to the beginning of the word.

i am so freakin proud of her.

and my heart seriously breaks as i watch her try to talk.

she wants so badly to be able to say what she wants to say.

but she literally cannot.

the wires do not meet and the only thing we can do it continue to try.

and we will not stop.

not until this baby girl of ours can say everything she wants to say.

because isn't that what she deserves?

and here she is a year ago repeating my unofficial word list.

and today...

the same unofficial list.