Back to the Beginning (Larry Stylinson)

Chapter 37

"Mr.Tomlinson?"

Both Louis and Harry snapped their heads up and saw a woman, maybe in her mid 40's looking at them with a small smile.

"Yes, are you Mrs. Jacobs?" Louis asked as he stood up from his seat and offered the older woman his hand to shake.

"That would be me." She said happily, taking Louis' hand in her own and shaking it quickly. "Please call me Kate though."

"Great, you can call me Louis, and this is my husband Harry, and that little guy in there is Cody." Louis said through a smile as he introduced the younger lad and his son who was wide awake in his carrier.

"Pleasure to meet you." Kate said through her own grin as she shook Harry's hand and then looked down to the two month old baby. "So if you two want to follow me we can go into my office and talk about what we'll be doing with this little guy." She said as she looked back up at the pair.

Louis and Harry nodded at her before following the older woman past the waiting area and to her office. When they got there they took a seat in front of her desk with Cody's carrier by Harry's feet.

"Okay so first things first." Kate began as she pulled on a pair of glasses and shuffled through some papers on her desk. "It's great that you are starting so early with his therapy, and with him being so young what we really want to focus on are his visuals and and touch."

Louis nodded as he figure that but there was still something nagging at him. "Now the first year or two are crucial for newborns and toddlers, for them to interact with their parents vocally, because they start to understand a the world around them as their parents talk to them. Now with him being unable to hear us and understand our spoken language how are we supposed to make that connection?" He asked, already having a couple of questions.

Kate raised her eyebrows at Louis and chuckled to herself. "I thought you were a footie player not a child expert." She said through a chuckle.

"I went to uni for early child development and education." Louis said through his own laugh, waving it off.

Kate smiled at him before nodding. "Well to answer your question is that until Cody is able to crawl around I'll have him doing very simple things. May it be touching different textured pallets and showing him multi colored lights. We want him getting used to feeling and seeing before we work on vocalizing." She explained.

"So what do we do with him then?" Harry asked.

"You two will be doing the same things with him that I do here but at your own home. Something that I highly suggest as well is that whenever you talk and are holding him put his hand to your throat so he can feel you talk to him. That way you can make that connection with him but in a different way"

Louis nodded to himself, as did Harry as it all seemed simple enough for the time being. "What about babbling? Usually baby's start around 4 to 6 months, but will he babble or make any noises at all?" Louis asked.

"He will babble just the same." Kate said as she nodded at the pair. "What I also want to do in these therapy sessions is start to show him pictures of different actions, objects and even people in your family and start signing to him so he can begin to recognize the signs. And what he'll start doing when he begins to babble he'll also begin to sign to you. May it be 'eat', 'more', 'please', or even 'dad'. He'll be signing much sooner than babies are normally talking." She explained.

"Really?" Harry asked with raised eyebrows. "That's kinda cool." He said through a small smile. "So is there anything else we need to do at home besides what you already said?"

"Other than just learning sign language yourselves that should be about it for now." Kate said as she grinned back at him. "We can set up appointments for next week if that's alright with you?" She asked.