I see you working here today. You're not special. You're extraordinary.

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As I was cleaning up tonight (such an exciting life, I know. Gotta take advantage of nights off to get stuff done!), I was thinking a lot about the Bean. She saw her pediatrician yesterday, as her dad and I are looking to get her a neuropsych evaluation to determine whether there's something more going on than "just" sensory stuff.

I've wondered, sometimes aloud, whether her having sensory issues put her on the very mild end of the autism spectrum. She actually exhibits a lot of characteristics of Asperger's Syndrome, and while I'm not trying to diagnose or pigeonhole her, getting the full picture of what's going on, even if it means labeling her with more stuff, seems crucial at this point.

So we'll push ahead and try to get her in to see someone soon; I'll keep y'all posted. If anyone in the area has a neurospych or any other related professional or program they recommend, comment away :)

As I've navigated the divorce landscape and struggled with sharing my children with strangers, I've wondered if the kids will ever realize that some days it was damn near heroic of me to keep a smile on my face and stay engaged with them, when all I wanted to do was yell and scream about how it sucked and how unfair it was.

But it occurred to me tonight that Bean is the real hero. And she's a hero pretty much every day. Given that every interaction she has is a challenge for her, and right now she's going to a preschool that does the bare minimum to feed her sensory needs, her good days are even more remarkable. That she starts to lose control when they make her lay down without talking or moving, well, I have a hard time faulting her - she can't, physically / mentally / emotionally handle that. But she tries. Every day, she knows it's going to happen, she knows she's going to go to school even when she doesn't want to, and she still tries. She always tries.

(Quote from "Potential".)

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