Day 8 Kaden MacKay

This little boy came at a time where our family was emotionally down. We weren’t expecting anyone to get pregnant and my family was pretty proud of the fact that none of the siblings in my family were teen parents (not that those who have babies in their teens are bad, it’s just super difficult to be a mom and go to high school). I still remember when we first found out that Ally was pregnant, Peaytan and I would spend hours throughout the week talking to Allyson’s stomach telling this unborn baby that we were going to be his favorite aunt and that he’d love to hang out with us all the time. When the time came this little boy to come it was the end of September. We were all in the labor and delivery room with Allyson waiting to meet him, when the doctor realized that this baby could not come naturally. They had to do a c-section to get him out because every time my sister pushed, Kaden’s heart rate would drop. So at 4 am our little Kaden was born. He is now three years old and my how he has grown!

He wasn’t able to speak and say words, only sounds. The doctors said it was normal and not to worry about it. So we just kept talking to Kaden and trying to get him to say words instead of sounds. Finally at the beginning of this year my sister saw a specialist and found out that Kaden had appoxia (I think that’s what it is called)-which means that Kaden understands what we are asking him to do and the words that we are saying, but there is a connection missing when he goes to say the word back to us. So when we would ask him to say ball for example. In his mind he was saying ball back to us clearly, but since that connection wasn’t there we only heard “aahhh.” He has come far though in the last few months. He is now able to say my name and many other words. Every day is a new experience with this very smart 3 year old because he usually says a new word and it’s so fun to get excited with him about the fact that we can understand each other.