Transparency

Our church is currently doing an annual church-wide Daniel Fast.

In addition to the reasons of denying your flesh in order to glorify God, Cory and I have always chosen a specific prayer to focus on during our time of lengthened fasting.

In Isaiah 58  it talks about God bringing about healing and bringing it about quickly through prayer and fasting. I strongly believe in this. I've seen it happen!

Some of you who are close to us may know this specific request that I am focusing on during this fast.

Others of you probably don't have any idea what I'm talking about.

I'd like to share it with you so that you will lift this need up while you are fasting and praying.

Everyone knows we have our miracle boy who is now 28 months old.

Most of you just see his cute little blonde head running around and full of energy.What you may not know is that Easton had severe ear infections as a baby.He had tubes put in both ears at 18 months.

Around that time we noticed that Easton was not talking as much as Autumn was when she was that age. I chalked it up to the fact he's a boy and boys are sometimes slower at milestones than girls.

At his check up from his tubes, I mentioned to Eastons pediatrician that he wasn't talking much. He could say mum, ball, da. And a few others small things. The pediatrician reccomended speech therapy.

We had his hearing checked twice from the ENT, and his hearing loss was signifigant before the tubes were put in, but his hearing loss is now in the 1 - 10 range since the tubes are in.

Long story short, Easton still only says a handful of words.Over Thanksgiving he began putting two words together. Today he said for the first time "A, B Ceeee". He won't stop saying it now (probably because we all got so excited)!! If you have toddlers, you know that their speech is normally more progressed by this age.

The pediatrician, ENT, and speech specialists all agree that it is just a speech problem and nothing more. He listens to commands. He understands what you are saying. His development is fine. It is a complete speech issue. They all tell me that it will work itself out and that a lot of kids don't talk until they are 3 or 4.

I can handle all of that. But at this point, Easton is getting frustrated because he tries so very hard to talk to us. He will repeat the same phrase over and over and over. We just can't understand what he is saying. You can see defeat on his face. We say "what?" to him a lot, so we are working on our responses to him.

So, through being transparent, a lot of people don't know that Easton has a speech problem. But now you do :)

Before anyone offers diagnoses ... he has been tested for autism. We have done "Your Baby Can Read." We've had a specialist come to the house to work with him. I've made flash cards. We've done all that the experts say to do .... so now we are leaving it up to the real physician. That's where we need your help. When you think of my handsome little mancub, offer up a prayer for us. Then look forward to the days soon to come when I'll be posting of things he is saying and the milestones he's overcoming! And by your fervent prayers, be assured that you will have a part in Eastons healing!