I know, I know, I took my blogging sabbatical to ridiculous lengths. Sorry. Summer was long, hot and boring, and I just didn't have the writing vibe, even though two major events occurred. The first was the birth of my fabulously adorable nephew, Sawyer, at the beginning of August. My sister birthed the world's biggest baby (9 lbs. 9 oz.) with only an epidural, making her pretty much Wonder Woman. And at 8 weeks old, he's easily the cutest, sweetest, most wonderful baby ever. And Sawyer wasn't the only new man we welcomed to the family. Matt's mom married the kind and wonderful Dr. Jeff at the beginning of September. He's a great guy, my kids love him, and he's a real live doctor who will come over long after the pediatrician's office has closed and look in my children's cruddy ears. Bonus!!!! So a big, belated blog congratulations to Elizabeth and Michael, and Pat and Jeff. And now the weather is finally starting to cool down, and the kids are back in school, and I actually feel like writing again. Unfortunately for you, I'm going to start out by complaining.
If you've been hanging around here for a while, you know that the twins had a rough start in life that led to developmental delays and therapy of all kinds. As babies they did physical therapy, and I was so proud when they "graduated." They also did some speech therapy, and I was also proud when they no longer qualified for speech therapy through early intervention. It felt like they might be moving past the delays. They weren't.
I knew their speech wasn't progressing like it should be. Mason was astonishingly articulate at their age- anyone could understand what he was saying. The only person that consistently understands the twins' speech is me, and I only get about 85% of what they say. And it hasn't just been speech, it's behavior too. They just don't have the maturity that you'd expect from 3 1/2 year olds. They seem more like "old 2's" than mid threes.
Once school started back, I couldn't really ignore it like I was desperately trying to. We went to orientation, met the kids in their class, saw a few familiar faces from last year's class, everything seemed fine. Until the moms started talking about when their kids turned three. Everyone was at least four months younger than the twins. Some kids weren't even three yet. It was obvious- My kids got held back.
And they should have. Developmentally, they are right where they belong. Unfortunately, that's about six months behind where they chronologically should be. So I agonized and worried about it for a month. You know, "What's wrong with them? What am I doing wrong? What does this mean for their future?" Had a few nightmares about them flunking out of preschool, the usual crazy-mom obsessing kind of stuff. But my fear of hearing the worst kept my head in the sand. I didn't want to hear that they truly were delayed, because in my mind, that means I failed them. Basically, my ego was standing in the way of me doing what was best for my children. So I decided to pull my head out of my ass and try to do something about it.
We had an appointment with the school system speech therapist today. It wasn't great. The kids were fairly uncooperative- Will's on steroids for the 9000th bout of bronchitis, and the 'roid rage is out of control- and they made it as hard as they possibly could for the therapist to evaluate them. The bad news is that their articulation sucks, and their sentence structure isn't really as advanced as it should be. She pointed out what I already knew, they act and talk like old twos instead of mid threes. They've always been about six months behind developmentally, so she said that the good news is that they are progressing, it's a delay, not a disorder, and you can fix a delay. We've still got to go through more formal evaluation stuff before we're approved for therapy, so we're going back next week.
This is good. It's good that they're going to get the help they need to function at their correct age level. And I just keep telling myself that, because at the moment, I feel like a big, fat failure of a mother. And I realize that's kind of dumb. Having children that are developmentally delayed doesn't make me a bad mom. Mason is really advanced for his age, but that's not because I'm the world's most amazing mother. Our kids are who they are. They each have strengths and struggles, and I have to remember that those don't define me as a mother. True, they are my life's work, and certainly a measure of their success rests on me. But I have to remember that sometimes they're going to fail and fail and struggle, and instead of worrying how it reflects on me, I need to focus on helping them get up and get back out there. My job isn't to present the face of the perfect mom to the world, because I'm not one, and trying to pass myself off as one won't fool anybody. I'm disorganized, impatient, kind of overwhelmed, my house is messy, I yell too much and I rack up ridiculous fines at the library because I'm too lazy to return books on time. I am miles and miles away from perfect, and I need to be okay with that. Because in spite of my imperfection, I love my kids more than life itself. I will do anything and go anywhere to give them whatever support they need to have a wonderful life. I will not equate needing help with weakness, because my kids deserve better than that.
So keep your fingers crossed that they'll be approved for speech therapy, and it we be a great thing for them. I'm praying that this is going to be a big year of growth for them. I'm hoping that by this time next year, we'll be amazed at how far they've come, and that I'll be laughing at myself for worrying that getting held back in preschool will lead to ongoing school setbacks to the point that they're the only fourth graders with a mustache!
