IEP time!

Too many things to share! Let's start here.


Tycho is IN! He's in!!!! He will be enrolling the school district's developmental preschool in the fall. Four half days a week, transportation provided (omg the short bus!!), amazing. I'm so relieved and happy and nervous and emotionssssss! We have his very first IEP meeting next week, but I was finally able to actually talk to his social worker person on the phone instead of the series of voicemails we had been leaving each other, and it looks like that meeting is mostly going to be details, and the big stuff that I was worried about is all going to be fine and it's going to be so good for him and he is going to thrive. My goal for him to be on target and mainstreamed by kindergarten feels reachable and everything is awesome. I think he's going to love it.

Let's pretend...

So this happened today:

I know he just looks like a normal almost three year old sitting on a train in a firefighter jacket and a viking hat, but that's just it: a normal almost three year old doing normal almost three year old things. This is the first time he has ever in his life played dress up. Ever. And he was pumped. And it was awesome. And I loved every second of it.

Pretend play and dramatization come up on the evaluations all the time, and it's just not something Tycho does. And it doesn't worry me too much, normally, because normally I don't look at milestone charts because I don't want to lose my mind, but combined with his lack of interest in drawing (especially drawing anything that he claims is an actual thing) and his disinterest in home-type toys like baby dolls or pretend food, it sits in the back of your head and makes you wonder.

So this was pretty incredible. I love you, my little viking firefighter train conductor.

Transition

Tomorrow is the beginning of the end.

Okay, perhaps that is just a tad dramatic. But when Tycho turns three in July he will age out of the birth-to-three early intervention program that he's in, and EI is transferred to the school district, and tomorrow we have out first transition meeting at his school with his therapists and the school district representatives and I am feeling nauseous for reasons other than just pregnancy.

I guess they have to officially tell us what's going on three months before his birthday, which means we start the eval process now. I honestly have no idea what will happen. I don't think he will qualify for services in speech anymore, but who knows in the other categories. I have really no idea what he is supposed to be doing right now anyway, according to the charts, because I haven't looked at them since we got him into his school. Because they are crazy-making.

I'm so nervous. I still feel super green when it comes to advocating for my kid and apparently it's even harder to qualify for services through the school district than it was for Boyer and I'm happy that he's made so much progress but I know he's not 100% caught up yet and he would so benefit and omg free preschool 5 days a week would be absolutely incredible for our family. At least we have everyone from Boyer there with us for these meetings to help us through. Whatever happens happens. And we are working on a preschool backup plan in the case that he doesn't get in, because school is just amazing for him. It will all be okay, I just wish it wasn't so hard.



Also, really, if preschool is so super beneficial and free public school is a basic right, then why the fuck isn't there free public preschool? For real.

The Best Thing

I have a lot of photo-heavy, low on content stuff to post what with Halloween and Trick or Treating and a trip to the zoo and his big boy haircut and our holiday family pictures, but that is all nothing compared to this.

Tycho talks.

Rocket science! You guys, I was so worried. My stomach was in knots for months as I was waiting and waiting and waiting, first for the language explosion that I was expecting that never came, and then to get him evaluated, and finally to actually get him placed into a program and start doing something. It was an emotional roller coaster, harder than I ever expected parenting to be, and a experience I never would have dreamed I would have.

The months ago Tycho could barely put two words together. He didn't have names for anyone or anything besides mama. He would lose old words every time a new word would appear. And we couldn't communicate effectively and we were all frustrated.

But now. Last night we were eating dinner and Tycho was sitting happily at the table say, "EAT FISH! EAT FISH! MORE FISH! PLEASE FISH!" while he ate. He uses rudimentary sentences. He has names now for Daddy and Arlo and his friend Selby at school and Lighting McQueen and Nemo and Dori and Thomas Train. He has new words every day. He supplies the word "feet" at the appropriate time when I sing him "Part of Your World" at bedtime. (And then he asks for "more song" and I sing him the reprise.) At our more recent trip to the zoo he said "lemur." He knows what a star fish is. I don't think I taught him that.

I am bursting with pride and happiness and gratitude and joy. Really and truly this is amazing and wonderful and I feel like we are able to know so much more of his delightful little personality now that he is able to share with us through his speech. When I think about where we are now and how far we've come I feel like a ball of energy and light. Euphoria. I can't even describe it.

We still have a ways to go but progress is being made and I couldn't be happier.

Insecurity

Most of the time I really do think I am a good mom.

Probably not the best mom of all time or anything. I lose patience, sometimes I yell, sometimes we watch Cars twice in a row because I'm exhausted and need a break, sometimes we go through the drive thru and eat french fries because why not. And none of those things make me a bad parent and I know that.

But sometimes I wonder if everything that's wrong is because of me. Not the things I did wrong, but the things I could have done that I didn't. That instead of throwing balls all the time always because that's what he wanted to do I could have been teaching him letters or colors or whatever else it is he is supposed to know by now that all the other kids somehow know by now that no one told me I was supposed to make sure he knew until he was already supposed to know. Why didn't I know? Why didn't I try to teach him even if I didn't? Does everything have to be educational?

WHY IS THIS PARENTING THING SO HARD?

It seriously leaves me feeling more vulnerable than I ever could have imagined being before.

 

Updates

Oh hey, it's been a while. Things have been good, busy, the usual.

Well not the usual because we got Tycho into school so everything is actually completely different.

That first day was really hard. Really, really hard. I was so nervous about day two, but day two was... so much better? I mean, of course it was better, it would be hard to get worse, but it was a lot better, and every day he has been at school has been a lot better than the last and he is getting the routine down much faster than I thought he would.

Still ironing out some kinks, of course. His behavior is still erratic compared to the other kids in his class, and we are maybe switching his classroom so he'll be around kids closer in age or something and blah blah blah, but we're definitely secure in the feeling that this was the right thing to do, and Boyer was the right choice for a center, and that he is going to like school.

It helped that he all at once took interest in the other kids on day three. It helped immensely with transitions that THEY were all going and WHERE are they going and I want to go TOO. Perfect. And then lots of adorable boy-hugs, which usually turn into crashing on the the ground piles of arms and legs, but who doesn't love that.

Tycho is talking up a storm all of the sudden. It's hard to know, really, if a couple weeks of school and therapy are actually making a difference, or if he's just a late bloomer and he would be all chatty right now regardless, but I don't care. It's is wonderful. He's still not like, caught up, or anything, not even close, but more and more I feel like I am actually communicating with him and he is understanding me and he can tell me what he wants and we are once in a while on the same page and it makes everything so much easier and thank goodness for that. He has all these words and he started (finally!) saying "please" instead of signing and "peese" is my favorite thing ever, and he's starting to say rudimentary sentences like "want candy" (waaan cineee) with like, verbs and stuff and omg omg omg.

I just want to squeeeeeeeeze him.

School

 I really need to learn to manage my expectations.

I was so sure that Tycho was going to love school, and I still think he will, eventually, but he definitely didn't love his first day.

We got to school early to put together his ISFP (Individualized Family Services Plan, like a IEP for the birth to three crowd), and that was fine because there were six of us to pay attention to him and he had a car ineach hand and that was fine. But every single transition after that was a meltdown of epic proportions and he wouldn't help clean up and he wouldn't give up his toys and insisted that every single car in the classroom was MYYYYYYYYYYYYY and stole things from other kids and wouldn't sit still and was generally just as poorly behaved as possible and I know it will get better but it makes me want to never go back.

By the time we left he was so angry that I had to physically hold him down to get him strapped in the car and he screamed 15 minutes of the ride home until he passed out. He took a good long nap, but he has been pretty much screaming hysterically on and off since he woke up. I'm about at that point, too.

This is way too hard.

We're in!

Oh dearest blog, I am having some emotions here.

We had Tycho's group evaluation yesterday. God, yesterday seems like a million years ago. Anyway. We took him to the clinic and had Tycho play with an educator and an occupational therapist and a speech language pathologist while they asked us some questions. This was the big one, where they decided whether or not we qualified for services and I was so worried that he had picked up just enough new skills in the couple weeks since our home visit that he would still be behind but just barely not qualifying.

Well not to worry.

When they went over results with us, the therapists all spoke so softly, as if not to break our poor little parental hearts, and I almost had to laugh, because we've known we've had a problem since maybe January and I'd already gone through the whole emotional roller coaster and landed squarely in acceptance. Or so I thought.

But after we got home and I put the babe down for his nap I sat down with his results and cried. Because, I mean, look at those numbers. I knew he was behind and I was okay and I am SO excited that we're finally moving forward to get him help and get him to where he needs to be. But I hadn't really had it all quantified so neatly before me. In five out of seven categories he is in the very bottom percentile and that really shocked me and awoke my angry inner mama bear and... I don't know.

I am feeling very emotionally fragile and weepy coming out of our evaluation. Really, I'm pleased with the results. Not only does he qualify for speech and occupational therapy, but he also will get to participate in their classroom services, which I really think he will love, and I think the structured learning environment will be amazing for him, and I'm so glad we're finally getting started but I also just feel like I've had the wind knocked out of me.

Parenting is hard in a way I could never ever have imagined or prepared for.

Evaluation

Tycho had his initial assessment this morning. It went well. 

I was having stomach-churning anxiety about the whole thing. I mean, not about Tycho. He couldn't mess it up because all he had to do was be himself, but the assessment was a home visit and home visits freak me right the fuck out. I know that they are not there to judge me on whether or not there is cat hair on the couch, but still.  But our house was clean and our child as bathed and my hair was pink and I momentarily regretted not waiting until next week so that I could appear to be a responsible adult but our intake nurse was very nice and everything was fine.

Tycho was amazing. I mean, not like, advanced, because he's not and that's the whole point, but he was more or less cooperative with the assessment games. I was pleasantly surprised. There was definitely a significant chance that he would just throw a screaming tantrum throughout the entire process, so any amount of participation from him was delightful. And he didn't spend the entire time pointing at the television begging to watch Cars and making me look like an asshole who sits him in front of the tv all the time as was my fear so that was good.

The verdict? Just as we expected, he is delayed in multiple areas. He is not quite at the 25% delay cutoff for speech, though, but he will hopefully still be able to get therapy for that. We don't know yet.  This is a gazillion-step process apparently, so next we take him to the clinic for a group evaluation where all the therapists and whoever see what he can do and then they will make their official recommendations and then we get to deal with the whole insurance coverage hullabaloo, which I already know will be stupid because my insurance only covers speech therapy for children with an autism spectrum disorder and not for regular old run of the mill speech delays apparently so we will get denied and have to go through the state aid process and blah blah blah blah blah. 

Anyway. I'm have some emotions about it all right now. Maybe it's the wine talking. I am actually really pleased with today's results, they are pretty much what I expected and wanted to see but the reality of entering THE SYSTEM is settling and ack. But I'm glad to be one step closer to actually doing anything. 

Phew. 

Frustration

Tycho's developmental assessment next week really can't come soon enough. He talks constantly, but I mostly have not a single idea what he is trying to tell me and we are both utterly frustrated with each other and all I want is to get started working on getting him to a better place.

At the same time, though, I'm so incredibly nervous. I've invited people to come into my home and judge me and that is scary and I'm worried that he has made just enough progress in the last month that he won't actually qualify for services but he'll still be clearly behind and we'll all be going crazy but we won't be able to find a way to afford private therapy for him and we'll be stuck like this and he won't reach his full potential and and and.

Just gotta get to next Wednesday.

Searching

By the way, it is pretty much impossible to successfully google for information on non-autism developmental delays because the Internet is oversaturated with autism information. You know, just in case you were wondering. 

Delay reaction

I can't believe I haven't posted about this yet. 

Well, I can, because as a parent your ego gets all wrapped up in milestones and your kid's behavior in public and so on, and because you love him so much that all you want to do is brag about the good things and maybe vent about the hard stuff, but you keep the darkness behind closed doors because feelings. But I'm pretty sure this is why I have a blog in the first place and I have way too many feels and need to put them somewhere. 

Tycho is... behind. I've had a feeling for a while. For a long time, actually. 

I mean, as a first time mom you're always hyper aware of milestones and obsessing over whether all his activities are enriching and educational and whatever and you feel guilty if you let him watch tv and you wonder when he doesn't roll over and you gloat when he smiles at only four weeks because even though it has nothing to do with you it feels like it has everything to do with you. 

At some point I banished those weekly babycenter emails with an inbox filter and it was good for me to just focus on my kid and what he was actually doing versus what some website hypothesized. But around 18 months I peeked in that folder for the first time in ages, and... panicked. He was supposed to have all these words and he didn't, not really anyway, and and and omg. All of these emotions hit me all at once and I was a ball of anxiety. But at his 18 month checkup the doctor said he was still within the range of normal, and we should wait and see how he was doing at two. 

I did really good with the wait and see. I backed off and I stopped reading those babycenter emails and I let Tycho just be Tycho and do things on his own time and be himself and stopped worrying. Or at least I stopped letting the worrying consume me. Wait and see, wait and see.

But two is fast approaching and that anxiety and worry is creeping back in and up my shoulders and around my neck and I'm paying close attention to my friends' children near his age and its become really clear that something just isn't right. 

Tycho still doesn't talk much.  He has some words, but not a lot more than he did six months ago, and some he was using regularly are all but gone now. He doesn't use most of his signs anymore. A two word phrase? Are you crazy? Communication with him sucks, to be perfectly honest. He is frustrated and I am frustrated and there are tears on both sides. He certainly hasn't had the language explosion that everyone talks about. There are other things too. He can't jump or walk down stairs. He doesn't pretend to talk on the phone or comb his hair. He never ever draws with crayons or stacks blocks.

I know it's not autism, though. He's definitely not on the spectrum. Eye contact and baby-flirting with strangers are his specialties. So that's good, I guess. 

But still, it's so hard. It's stupid, but I just kind of assumed that Kyle and I would produce a baby super genius. And we didn't and I don't know how to deal. Every post from one of my mama friends on Facebook bragging about their children's achievements feels like a personal affront. I want to brag about my kid, too, but I can't because he should have learned to use a spoon a year ago and it's not impressive anymore. 

When I do express concern, casually, to my mom or a friend I usually get shut down.  He's fine, he's perfect. But no, he's not and I want to be taken seriously because when everyone denies the possibility that he could be delayed I feel crazy and paranoid and helpless. 

I looked at the 24 months ASQ tonight, and he's under the cutoff in all categories to be evaluated. And even though that's bad, it's good too, because its validating. We'll take him to his two year checkup and we'll get a referral for a specialist and he'll be evaluated and we'll get him into EI and we'll get help and it will be good. And I am happy about that.