Oliver Starts First Grade

And just like that, summer is over.  Oliver started first grade today. We sent him off with a brand-new backpack and a beautiful Schultuete Nina had made him.  I think Oliver was bummed summer was over and possibly a little jealous of his siblings who haven't started school yet and are getting an extra week and a half of summer, but overall, he seemed happy to be back. 

Our au pair, Nina, with Oliver and the traditional German Schultuete she made him.

This year's first day of school was vastly more relaxed and tear-free compared with last year's. There's much less for Oliver to be anxious about since he knows the school. Unlike last year when there were very few familiar faces, he now has friends, including one particularly close friend who's in the same class this year.

The chaos of the first day of school was also alleviated by the school's decision to start kindergartners two days later, which meant fewer parents and children packing the hallways, and fewer children in tears. The morning felt unusually calm, and actually, quite anti-climatic.

We helped Oliver find his seat and when I asked if it was okay if his dad and I left, he quietly answered no.  Although he wasn't crying, I could tell he was nervous. His mood changed when he saw his good friend Atticus arrive and once they were seated together and laughing and catching up, Oliver indicated we could leave. A friend who dropped off her daughter right after we left reported back that Oliver was all smiles and excitedly waved at her and motioned for his classmate to join his group at the table. 

Despite being a little nervous when he first entered his new classroom, Oliver radiated confidence by the time we left.

Oliver's first grade teacher is Frau Zinnow, a native German. Parents of older students think very highly of her and my hope is that Oliver thrives academically and socially in her classroom.

Fistula Repair and P-Flap 6-Month Post-Op

Matteo had his six-month post-op visit to check up his recovery from his fistula repair and p-flap surgery back in February. Despite how well his mouth has recovered, he did develop a fistula, or in layman's terms, he developed a hole. The hole appears small, but the surgeon can't tell how deep it goes. The good news is that the surgery appears to have been a success given that the fistula is not impacting Matteo's speech and his p-flap closes off properly to prevent air from going through his nose, which gives him the ability to pronounce a broader range of sounds. At this time, we don't think he'll need another surgery to do a revision to the p-flap, which means his next surgery won't be until he's somewhere between seven and 11 years old when he'll have a bone graft.

The bad news is that despite Matteo's incredible work ethic during speech therapy, his repaired and lengthened palate, his age (he's turning four soon) and being home for a year and a half now, his speech is still nearly impossible to understand. And when I say impossible, I mean that I as his mom have extreme difficulty in figuring out what he's saying. It's heart-breaking to hear him repeat a word over and over again with such persistence and helplessly can't understand him.  

The doctors told me what I already know, that he has a severe articulation disorder. Of the 44 phonemes (the smallest units of sound that distinguish one word from another) in American English, Matteo can only pronounce nine according to his speech therapist's evaluation. His speech includes multiple phonological errors, such as phoneme omissions ("poon" for "spoon"), syllable reduction ("jamas" instead of "pajamas") and difficulty sequencing phonemes in single words. Just like Kiera, Matteo doesn't readily initiate verbally and communicates in one- to three-word phrases at most. 

Aside from identifying that Matteo has a "severe articulation disorder", they can't do further testing on his expressive language skills due to how unintelligible his speech is. So we must plug away at speech therapy and wait until he develops more intelligible speech to be able to identify a more exact speech disorder. 

Matteo is so smart and inquisitive and like his sister, I'm curious what he's thinking and wish he were able to tell me.