Role Reversal

Just before my older son started his early intervention classes and therapy, his receptive and expressive speech delays were so severe that even when I would tell him "let's go bye bye" he would just stare at  me blankly. People would say "don't worry, he will talk" but I would tell them that it wasn't the speech or speaking delay that bothered me as much as the fact that he had NO idea what I was saying. I learned how to simplify my words so he could better understand me and I started shaking the car keys so he knew it was time to go.

 Here we are 4 years later... Yesterday I spent the morning repeating everything I said to my younger son at least 7 times. He just was not in the mood to listen and would sweetly tell me no mom I'll do it this way, (We tell him daily how lucky he is that he is cute). At one point he came to me and told me that his big brother had climbed up on the dining room table and was sitting there playing his Ipad (as if he doesn't do this once a week, himself) and that he could fall. I stood up right where I was, looked over and called to my son and asked him to please get off the table and sit down. AND HE DID!!!  My first time asking, from 2 rooms away and he not only understood but happily complied.

I was very happy. I then instantly turned to tell little brother that in a million years I never thought that he would be the one I had to ask to do things 7 times and that big brother would do it after the first request!!

Early intervention works. My hard worker is chugging away at his mission and is clearly succeeding :)

Ever Grateful for Support

I have said many times that our son has a wonderful team of teachers and therapists and we know every single day how lucky we all are to have such devoted and talented professionals on our side.

 Each year in school there is a IEP meeting (Individualized Education Plan) and then every 3 years there is an assessment meeting that probably has a fancy name but I don't know what it is. Anyway, we had our 3 year assessment this week and it's always a little hard because while you know you are meeting with many of his supporters, sometimes it's not easy to look at the things that he isn't quite doing yet. I admit that I dreaded the meeting a tiny bit but from the minute we got there all of that worry went away.

We sat at a table filled with speech, occupational and physical therapists. Our son's teacher and the social worker and psychologist. He doesn't work with all of them generally, but some had done the evaluation that we were receiving results for so they were there to share their findings with us. I truly have a wonderful relationship with his teacher and the rest of the team and this is super important because things tend to creep up when you're in a situation like ours and support and communication are key.

For example, this year our district is closing 2 schools which actually shuffled tons of students around, so at the suggestion of someone on our team, I sent an email to the superintendent asking him to keep the special needs families in mind when he was making the big announcement about which schools all the students would be moving to.I was worried that they would make us wait longer than the rest of the district when they shared where everyone would be going to in the fall. It was a short, sweet email and I didn't need or expect a response. To my surprise, instead of a simple email reply, I  received the kindest and warmest phone call from the superintendent himself assuring me that we would be included in the big announcement. He did not disappoint as 6 months after our call, last week, he was sure to make our classes known at the exact same time as the rest of the district.

Recently we experienced a small bump when my husband and I felt that there was a slight conflict with one of the therapistst that was assigned to perform this big evaluation for our son. We don't work with her so it doesn't usually come up but when I was told she was going to be on the team for this I was a little uneasy. It was nothing major but trust is extremely important to us and I just didn't have that with this team member.

 I would say that within a half an hour literally, of expressing my concerns to the teacher she had gotten in touch with the director of special education and a new (and adorable if I can say) therapist had been assigned to stand in. This was done without even a touch of drama and we are sincerely grateful for how smoothly this went down.

So in addition to this wonderful team attending the meeting, we were humbled to see that the director of the special needs department for the entire (huge) school district had come to observe our goals as well.  I have a different perspective than many parents, I think, and I also am a sweet but outspoken advocate on behalf of our son so I believe she wanted to meet us in person and I loved hearing her personally offer her support.

The goals didn't change a whole lot because we just met with a smaller group this past October but it was truly amazing to look back at where we started and see the progress our little man has made since he started his school journey 3 years ago.

There are up's and down's for sure but having a team of supportive professionals rooting for and appreciating our baby is all we could ever ask for. We are sad to leave some of the team behind when he moves to a new school next year but we are forever grateful to have worked with them and our friendship with each of them will continue for sure!

We know how lucky we are to have such a sweet and amazing son and we know how lucky he is to be supported by some of the very best in the business!

Love and gratitude!