Timeline

Over Thanksgiving I had a conversation with my mother about how Michael had started to catch up by the time he was Ava’s age. And as a contrast, Ava had plateaued. In fact, she was choosing to use more and more gestures rather than trying to use words to communicate. After that holiday it was going to be time to start making phone calls.

The week before Christmas Ava saw a private speech therapist for the first time and she agreed that Ava looked pretty apraxic. This was when the depression kicked in. I couldn’t hope that I was just an overly concerned speech pathologist mother any more. I spent a week crying most of the time that I wasn’t directly interacting with my kids. Then holiday preparations kicked in and I was too busy to obsess over it. Next, we visited family in another state for 4 days. If you’ve ever traveled 12 hours in a car with a 1 and 3 year old you’ll know that it’s pretty much all absorbing.

The week we got back was Ava’s early intervention evaluation. She qualified which was great, but also depressing. So I spent another week or so in non-productive mode. Then I started blogging, which helped. And researching, which also helped. Now I’m in full-on productive mode. Two modes actually. I’m being productive as a parent of a child newly diagnosed with a speech disorder. I’m also being productive as a speech-pathologist who has acquired a reason to become knowledgeable about a specific disorder in her field.

To change or not?

Let's briefly digress to a totally different topic. Michael will be eligible for our local school district’s preschool program in the fall. Registration is at the end of this month. I can’t decide if we should switch him or not. Right now Ava and Michael both attend a local high quality day care two mornings a week. For the most part we’re happy with the program although it is expensive.

Pros of switching:

1. Well, first of all, it’s a lot cheaper. I could send Michael all five days a week for only a little over half of what his two days of day care costs now. Given that all these new therapy bills are coming in, paying less for preschool would be nice.

2. He’d be in preschool with his future elementary school classmates and have the opportunity to begin developing hopefully long term relationships and friendships.

3. He’d begin to get familiar with and comfortable with his future elementary school.

4. He’d be following an actual preschool curriculum rather than a daycare. He’d have to be more independent and follow a more structured routine. This would start to prepare him for the transition to kindergarten early.

Cons of switching:

1. Purely logistically, it would be a mess. I’d be dropping kids off at two separate places at two different times and the same for picking them up. They can attend daycare any time between 6:30am and 1pm. The daycare feeds them both breakfast and lunch. So I drop them both off together at about 7:45am and pick them both up at 12:15pm and the school’s taken care of two meals for me. If I switch Michael I’ll need to feed him, but not her breakfast. Then drop her off at 7:45 and drive to the preschool and drop him off at 8:15. Then I’ll have to pick him up at 11:15 and take him home and feed him lunch. Then put him back in the car to pick Ava up at 12:15. If I wait one more year to switch him to the school district’s preschool, they can both make the transition together. He’d still have a full year of preschool at the local school district before starting kindergarten.

2. He likes his current school. He likes his teacher. He likes the more nurturing atmosphere of the day care. I like the idea of more free play and less structure. He’s mature and smart and articulate for his age, but he’s still just a three year old boy and I think he deserves another year of play.

So, there it is. Decision needs to be made in the next week. I’d ask for opinions, but I’m pretty much the only one reading my blog and I don’t know what my opinion is yet. :-)

I’ll probably end up registering him just to reserve a spot. Why make a decision today when you can find a way to postpone the decision for several months? I can always decide not to switch him in the fall. I’d just have to be willing to give up the $50 deposit. Then the question is how many days? Definitely not all five, the question is 2, 3, or 4?

Emotional Journey

By nature I have a pretty cheerful, positive personality. I use that energy to spend positive days at home with my children and in my dynamic with my husband where my more bubbly personality tends to raise the energy in the household in a positive way. When Ava qualified for early intervention services with a likely diagnosis of apraxia it hit me hard. I was depressed and on the verge of tears pretty much every waking moment. It made it difficult to be a good parent to my children and changed the whole tone of my interactions with my husband. Here I wondered how long it would last before I’d be able to think past the fear and sadness of the diagnosis and become a little more functional and a little more myself.

Well, it turns out that for me the worst of it lasted about 2-3 weeks. Blogging helped actually. Normally I’m a hide my wounds and lick them in private kinda girl, but talking about everything both online and off has helped a lot. I think the holidays helped too simply because I was too busy to obsess.

I’m also consciously avoiding lines of thought that aren’t productive. Any train of thought that goes something like, “What will school be like for her? or How will she make friends if she can’t talk to them? or I think she’d be closer to her brother if only they could talk to each other. or Will she have the language and reading problems that often accompany apraxia when she gets older?” gets cut off immediately. I don’t know yet how she’ll respond to therapy or how fast she’ll progress. It just doesn’t make sense to worry about tomorrow’s possible problems when there are enough things to deal with today. I can handle today’s problems. I can work out solutions. I can’t do anything about fears for things that –might- happen in the future.

So now I’m in a flurry of activity and I feel pretty good about it. It makes me feel better to have a list of things I want to accomplish and to actually be crossing some of those things off. In my next few posts I’ll talk about some of the things we’re doing and setting up right now.