Not the news I wanted

Yesterday was Noah's 18-month checkup with his pediatrician. Luckily for him, there weren't any shots he had to have this time. I did ask about his lack of speech, and she said that it's not normal for him to have such a small vocabulary (only 2 words he uses consistently, and one of them isn't an actual word). She said it happens a lot when an only child stays home with Mom all day, and doesn't have a whole lot of social interaction. She said that apparently I'm a very attentive Mommy, so he doesn't feel like he needs to talk to get what he wants. Also, since he's an only child and doesn't have any older, talking siblings and doesn't have any cousins or anything that he gets to hang around with a lot, he doesn't really understand that little people are supposed to talk. He thinks that talking is for big people, and he's a little person, therefore, he's not supposed to talk. Shoot, if I thought that, I wouldn't talk either. So, she told me to look into signing him up for some classes or something where he can hang around more kids his age so that he can start figuring out that little people talk too. It'll also be nice for him to get out a little more since, for the most part, he's stuck with me all day long. I'm also supposed to be talking to him non-stop so that maybe he'll decide to try it.

I've spent all morning looking for classes he would enjoy. They're all "Mommy and Me" classes, so he won't totally be thrown in the deep end. I'm between gymnastics classes, and swimming. He loves the water, but I'm not sure how much he'd actually get to interact with other kids while he's in the water. So, I'm leaning towards "gymnastics" classes. I put it in quotes, because I know it's far from actual gymnastics, but he'd still get to run and climb on things, and hopefully, learn how to play well with others. Now I just have to narrow down the options as far as where to go. There's 2 gyms that specialize in classes for little ones, and one that focuses on much older kids, but happens to have classes for his age group too. The last one is a lot cheaper, but I also am tempted by the places that specialize in the toddlers.

We're going back to the Dr. for a follow-up at the end of June, and if he hasn't improved, we'll probably have to get him some speech therapy. Oh, they joys of parenthood.... I do want to help him as much as possible though. Even though it was slightly upsetting to find out from a professional that his speech development isn't normal, I'm at least glad to know that there are things that Josh and I can do to help him.