Well, life does happen and, since I last posted on this blog, it did happen, monstrously so. No, I didn't have a baby. C is still an only child. But about three months after my last post, C and I confronted one of the hardest crisis our family has ever experienced. It didn't get as bad as it could have gotten but it got pretty close. It was pretty bad. And you know what, throughout it all, C was a trooper. He really was. He was just two months shy from being 9 at the time and, although he has a hard time expressing himself, his actions showed such an understanding of life, of what we were going through. He tried so hard to be so strong. That alone had me in tears sometimes because I couldn't help but think, "what if this is how it's going to be from now on?" He was my hero, my C., he really was. You should have seen the way he tried to look after me, tried to help out however and whenever he could. Once we were at the checkout line in the grocery store and he took things out of the basket and put them on the scanner... He was being my "little man". How did he know to do that? He never ceases to surprise me.
He showed some real insight too. We were getting home from that same shopping trip and as he waited for me to go in, he said, "I guess it's just you and me" mom. I almost fell apart then but I didn't. Thank God I didn't. So that's what happened.
That was two years ago. C has grown up some more since then. He's taller and I'm starting to catch some glimpses of the young man he will become. He's going to be a handsome fellow. He still struggles with many areas of development. Right now, he's combining an outdated perseverance for some younger TV shows and an avid interest in some age-appropriate ones. I'm not sure what to do about it. He is watching those age-appropriate shows, isn't he? But sometimes I feel he's made such progress only to watch him fall behind again.
His speech has really improved for example. So has his language comprehension. Not to the point where he can ace a reading comprehension test, that's the crux of his disability, but enough to ask some questions and engage in conversation. I feel like I'm missing an important piece of the puzzle tough, like there's something right there, right outside my reach, either a strategy, an approach or technique that I'm not aware of but that could help him do better. I hate feeling like this, like there's something right in front of me and I just don't see it. It's frustrating beyond words. I want to help him with his school work but I don't have the strategies. Honestly, sometimes I think it would be really great if I could devote an entire year or at least, half a year to research ways of helping C improve in speech and language. Between work and his therapies, I just don't have enough time left to do the research unless I choose to sleep less than the four to five hours I manage to squeeze in at night. I can't do that. My body is already protesting in many different and painful ways. But more time would allow me to make all these inquiring phone calls, send all those emails where I could at least start to map out a plan for the next couple of years.
Mind you, C is happy. He's a happy kid so it's not really an emergency, at least on the surface it isn't but time is flying and he's growing so yes, it sort of is an emergency. My goal is to find him a school that can address his disability, his most debilitating disability, speech and language impairment. I really feel that out of all the challenges C is facing, this one is the one keeping him from enjoying life the most. So much is tied to communication. He needs to find a school that can help him learn with or despite this disability.
Of course, his eating habits are also a huge concern. He still refuses to use his teeth fully when he eats. He's not pocketing food as much as he used to but his diet is so limited, it's ridiculous! He also has a hard time with extremely cold food such as milkshake and ice-cream. He won't eat them unless I let them melt in a cup first. He likes pizza but can only eat the cheese. So that, too limits his social experience. And the thing is, he wants that. He wants to participate, wants to eat what other kids are eating at parties but once he has it on his plate, he only plays with it. Sometimes, it makes it as far up as his mouth but then he takes it out and spit it out in the napkin. Once we showed him how to discreetly spit food out when he's out, he started doing it all the time.
So his challenges are alive and thriving, if I can put things that way. Those are the major ones we're facing these days. The others are not quite as bad; they are habits that he can live with so they are not really a focus for intervention right now. They may be in the future but for now, we are concentrating on language and food. Those are our main concerns right now.
