Maybe not the best title quote considering my current state of mind, but I can't help but like it. Calvin and Hobbes always amused me, even the quotes of a more "serious" nature.
Right now I am so overwhelmed with everything- and stress levels are at an all time high. I keep reminding myself that I am going to focus on de-stressing. Im reminding myself to breathe. I'm forcing myself to do my workouts when that's the last thing I want to do right now. I'm trying to focus an organizing everything to get my life under control. But each time I feel like I am getting close, something new comes to tip the scales and upset the tentative balance I have going on.
First it was moving here, and then school, and then the prospect of no longer being a military family, then problems with That Guy. I'm not going to say I handled all of these things well, some of them I am still handling. Still, I felt like there was a routine, a plan in place- a way to move forward.
And now I have the school here telling me that my son's problems are worse than I ever realized. I knew he was delayed with his speech, I expected that. But after months of jumping though hoops and weeks of meetings, evaluations, classes, and testing- I get a call telling me that it's more than just a speech delay- The Boy is being diagnosed with a learning disability.
And I still don't have any answers. I won't find out until next week what disability they have discovered. All I know is that what I thought was a normal speech delay that even I had as a child is something more. And my son won't just be taking speech classes- he won't be attending "normal" kindergarten at all.
To top it all off, not only are they keeping me in the dark after months of jumping through hoops- they are not going to begin working with him until the end of August. So the "homeschooling" I started for fun in June is now being done in earnest. I'm no longer just trying to have a little bit of fun with The Boy and The Girl each day- I am having to spend hours each night searching the internet for whatever resources are available to me so I can help him.
I'm feeling massive amounts of guilt for mommy failures right about now. How is it that my son is five years old and I never realized how far behind he is? In the past 10 years I have gotten a total of 7 years of child care experience. I've studied early childhood development- but still somehow missed all the warning signs that my son was not developing normally? How could I have been so blind to all of it?
I am so sorry for him- that I have failed him- that I didn't see this- that I couldn't help him. I'm trying to remember to just keep breathing and take it a day at a time, but right now I'm having to take it a half hour at a time or I'll lose my mind.
Wednesday, 2 July 2008
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2 comments:
sorry they blindsided you with that...i get how it would make you feel guilty and miserable. but...but...any kind of diagnosis at this age is pretty specialized, because The Boy is still preschool age, so it's hard to catch.
as someone with a special ed background in diagnosing learning disabilities, let me say that at this age diagnoses can be pretty generalized and SHOULD be more about identifying learning strengths and weaknesses in the child, rather than making too specific claims. if your local kindergarten ONLY offers support for various learning styles in the non-mainstream program, okay...but make sure they explain how their assessment of The Boy will fit with the special program, and how this will benefit him, because mainstreaming can also offer advantages.
heavy stuff, in any case...but hopefully the diagnosis will help prevent learning problems for him in the long run. wishing you luck.
You have not failed as a mom. Don't call any of this "failures." It's so hard, I am sure. But you will get there. With your background and your love for your children you will work through this. The period where you feel in limbo, waiting for help, is what is going to be the hardest. You'll get there. I promise.
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