“Mum”… it’s a word many of us mothers hear all the time. Sometimes so much we get sick of hearing it. “Mum, where are my shoes?”, “Mum, can you get me a drink?”,  “Mum, can we go to the park?”.

“Mum, mum, mum, mum, mum!”

Before this though, are the moments where we are just waiting to hear those words. In many cases, it can be one of the first words our kids learn, and it brings such joy.

Now imagine, your child struggles with words and has difficulties getting their mouth and tongue to work together to form words. While everyone else has been hearing their kids call them mum for a few years already, you’re still waiting for that day to come. You wonder sometimes, if you’re child even understands or knows who you are. I’ve wondered this myself at times. Does Hope recognise me as her mum? Does she knows what “mum” means? Or am I just the person who is always around? I still have some of these questions, but just recently, I have been getting some answers.

A couple of months ago, I walked into the front door, put down my bag, and into the kitchen where Ben and Hope were waiting. Hope looked over at me, her eyes beaming and her smile wide. “Muuuuum”, she said, as she came over to give me a hug.

That moment right there is one that I will never forget. If I could have captured that feeling in a jar, it would keep me going for years. It was a feeling of relief, joy, love, pride and excitement all at once. It told me right there that Hope does know who I am. She can see me, recognises me, and now can even say exactly who I am. Does she understand exactly what mum is? I don’t know. But she isn’t calling everyone else mum, so she knows that it’s just me, it’s something special and that I am important. She knows me.

We’ve still got a lot to work on with Hope’s language. She is very good at saying her vowel sounds, but some of those consonants are tricky and we will continue to work on them. While Hope can say mum and does quite often say it very clearly, she still struggles to say “dad”. D is a tricky sound. She can do it, she often does when she is babbling but… when it’s intentional, it doesn’t always come out. That means that Ben is still to hear “dad” said clearly to him but again just recently, I sat with the kids eating our dinner with Ben on his way home. When Ben came in the door, Hope heard his voice, looked up excitedly and said “a”. We knew what she was trying to say. Hope knows exactly who Ben is.

So now, we keep working, we work on getting more of those language skills and work on getting more and more sounds. We know that Hope will get there and sometimes, these small moments, these little words that bring such joy, just give us the little boost we need to keep on pushing through. Hope will be reading stories and singing songs clearly to us in no time!