A child WHAT?!

This morning I took Captain Adventure to a speech therapist for a preliminary evaluation around his speech issues. While he’s making some progress on the talking front, he’s still nowhere near where he ought to be for a three year old, not only in pronouncing words but in such basic things as initiating conversation. Which he doesn’t, pretty much ever. I think he would actually drop dead of thirst before he would walk over to me and say, “Juice!”

Funny, huh – the other three, I’m wishing they’d stop initiating conversations (or at least quit bursting into the room and firing off demands like a machine gun), while I can’t get my boy to give me the time of day. Or even say “clock”.

He had a very good session. He showed off what words he does have, and played the ‘point at the {nose, mouth, shoe, cup}’ game cheerfully enough and showed that he does play with toys and play-act and all that.

So she’s checking things off her list and scribbling things down and playing with him (we both like her – she’s good people) and occasionally asking me questions.

After an hour of this, she gives me the upshot of where she thinks we’re going.

He has high cognitive and social skills. He has excellent motor skills. He’s a bright-eyed little guy, friendly and outgoing, good eye-contact and body language. She has no worries about autism or Asperger's Syndrome or any of the other boogie men that hide under my bed at night poking at my psyche so I can’t sleep.

She is going to be working with him regularly right out the gate. We already have our next session scheduled for next week. And also she would like to get the ball rolling to have him admitted to the special needs preschool run by the district. Here’s the paperwork, and here’s how we get started…

Such a wave of confliction ran through me at that moment, it defies description.

Why did I all but twist my pediatrician’s arm to get a referral to the speech therapist? Because I know my boy has issues I can’t address by myself. He has special needs, and he needs help I can’t give him. If he keeps on as he is now, he won’t be starting kindergarten in two years. He will be lagging behind, always. He needs trained professionals to show interest in him and teach him how to express what is going on inside his mind.

So you’d think I’d be nothing but delighted that we are talking about getting him into the special needs preschool program, huh? The highly rated program, the one that has worked miracles for children in our community, the one praised by our pediatricians, the exactly right thing for a boy like Captain Adventure, who is wicked smart but unable to show it?

But at the same time, I’m afraid. I’m afraid he will go to this program and they will pull me aside and say, “OH, we’re so sorry, it isn’t just a speech delay – he has {insert Syndrome du Jour here} and he will never, ever be anything like ‘normal’.”

I’m afraid it will come back to something I did. Yeah yeah, I know, I know. I’m a good mom blah blah blah – but I go back and pick over his three years of life, and even his pregnancy, and point out all the things I did wrong or could have done better and IF I HAD would he be talking up a storm right now, using the potty while reading up on his Shakespeare?

So you can imagine how I felt when she then said, cheerfully, “OK, so here’s what we’re going to do, I’m going to have the child psychologist and the preschool coordinator arrange for a home visit…”

THE CHILD WHAT?!?!

Excuse me, the child psychologist?! Coming to my house?!?! Uuuuuuuh…

And here, Tama exposes that she has many irrational prejudices and is also deeply ignorant.

I dislike psychologists. Isn’t that awful of me? But I hate the way they always seem to find things that are wrong with everybody. You say something like, “Oh, I’m not that fond of cabbage” and they will start telling you about how your issues stem from your relationship with your father and that the ‘cabbage’ represents his testicles or something equally disgusting.

Now I know that the psychologist is coming to observe Captain Adventure in his native environment to confirm that he has speech issues, that he relates well to others, that the home isn’t a scary place and all that. I know that the psychologist is not coming here to pick apart my housekeeping or to determine whether or not I should be allowed to keep him.

But still.

A child psychologist is coming to my house to observe my child so that he can be placed (or not) in a special needs program…which obviously I drove him into because I am terrible mother with deep-rooted issues around cabbage.

**sigh**

See, this is where I have to put on my big girl panties and carry on. This isn’t about me or what people think of me or whether or not I’m endangering my Mother of the Year award (snort!).

It’s about my son, who is not where he should be. He needs help that I can’t give him, not by myself. I’ve tried. We’ve made progress. But it isn’t enough, and it has stalled. He needs more, and so do I. I need these people to help me help him – I need them to take me by the hand and show me what I can do for him.

He’s a bright little boy with a long life ahead of him. He’s got so many things to see and do and be, so many thoughts he will think, so many deeds he will do. I want him to jump in with both feet and start running – not be lagging at the back of the pack feeling confused and left behind because his momma was too proud to admit she wasn’t able to handle it herself when he hit a snag.

Or because she was afraid the psychologist was going to rub her hands together, cackling eagerly, saying to herself, “Wow, this mom is a piece of work! I’m finally going to make my mark in the psychological thesis community!!”

…maybe I should go buy some cabbage, just for show (because I’m surely not going to eat the stuff!)…