ENT Appointment

We went to the ENT today with Sebastian to check out his potential restricted frenulum (tongue-tie) issue. Of course I was actually debating on not taking him after all, because (no joke) the day AFTER making the appointment, he started working N, T, and D into his babbling arsenal. Those are the very sounds I was worried about (and the ones that could be difficult with a tongue-tied kiddo). So I was kind of expecting the appointment to be a bit of a waste, but figured we might as well go anyway.

Yeah, so turns out he's totally fine. Frenulum isn't restricted, might be a bit short, but nothing that would need clipping (now or in the future). Sebastian did awesome at the appointment...he was VERY quiet and reserved. That isn't altogether out of character for him around new people/places, but was pretty strange nonetheless, since he's usually such a maniac when we're out and about. I guess the doctor's office freaked him out a bit. The PA and doc were both really nice, as was the receptionist, and were obviously all familiar with kids and tried to make him as comfortable as possible.

Sebastian let them look in his ears and his nose just fine, but shook his head when we asked him to open his mouth, show us his teeth, or show us his tongue. So in went the tongue depressor, and he was even ok with that for a bit. He only started crying a bit when the doc kept it in for a while longer to let Ken take a look, but then he stopped and Sebastian was fine. I didn't get a look because I was holding him, but I trust the doc's appraisal.

So it looks like Sebastian's late-ish talking isn't from any organic cause. Which is good, I guess. No, it is good. It means that he'll probably just get that "language explosion" everyone keeps talking about a bit later than some other kids. But I know it'll happen. He's already babbling SO much more (and trying out repeating words, too) in just the last week, it's pretty amazing. We'll keep working with him on making different sounds, repeating, etc. And he'll get it.

Maybe we should have just waited a while longer, but all in all I'm glad we went. At least now I don't have to worry about it anymore. Now we can move forward and let him do things at his own pace (ok, ok, I'll probably push a little harder than most people would, but hey, it's my job as his mother AND an SLP, right?). In any case, I'm like 80% sure he said "tee-gah" for "tiger" this evening (Ken heard it too!), and that's CRAZY progress compared to "a-bah" for everything. Baby steps, eh?