The kids and I had already been trying to recoup from the social excitement from last weekend. I planned to take it a little easy this week with school because we have a fall break for two days next week. We will not take full days off for break around here from school, unless it is a specific holiday and I plan for it. I learned my lesson over the summer. We will keep on schedule, but I will keep the days lighter. Monday pretty much was not that productive. My appointment was at 11 am and we were only able to work on their lessons a little bit. We did spend five hours doing schoolwork though.

Some days we take things slow.

On Tuesday, we were trying to catch up and all of us were still a bit slow going still. By Wednesday, we were starting to get back into the groove and soaring through lessons and assignments. On Thursday morning, I received a call from an Occupational Therapists asking me if I could come in on Friday to have Daniel get his standardized OT evaluation. She informed me that it had to be completed by Monday and 11 am Friday was all she had available. Strange, I had not heard from the school.

We did not have a choice so I scheduled it.

She was nice, but apparently, someone had dropped the ball with Daniel’s paperwork and scheduling which meant that it had to be done ASAP. No one seemed to know who dropped the ball… She told me that there was quite a bit of paperwork that needed to be filled out to forewarn me before I got there. I suggested I come by and get it so I could fill it out beforehand. I was already feeling um, intense? The best word I can think of. Let me interject here my head is spiraling and spinning from all of the paperwork I have had to do in the past few weeks. Normally, I find it fun to fill out paperwork, but having to dissect my emotions, my body issues, and every single sensory, behavioral, and emotional issue with Daniel, oh, AND myself has been a lot to process.

I picked up the paperwork after I finished dinner.

I had to stop at the store because I still had not made it when I was supposed to go on Monday. When I got home, it was time to put the kids to bed and I pulled out the paperwork. Over 400 freaking questions! I am not kidding! It took me a few hours to go through them all. I had to pull up behaviors of when Daniel was a baby, when he was a toddler, when did he do this, how does he do that, does he smell all of his food, does he hear every sound in the universe, etc… YES! That is what I wanted to put on each page. A big fat Y-E-S! Ha ha ha However, that would be incorrect because some things he does not do. So I did not do that.

I filled out all of the paperwork properly.

The next day I was trying to get in as much school as possible because I knew that Daniel would not be able to do much more when we got home. I also knew that Ariel and Joshua would get distracted without me being here. Ariel is quite fixated lately with reading The Superman Series Comics and the Beast Quest series. Joshua has taken to studying every single Lego Hero Factory instruction guide online and is creating some awesome Hero Factory guys with grand tales and battles. Ariel jumps on that too when she is not reading. Distracted much, Angel?

I was not sure about the OT.

She felt scratchy. She seemed nice enough, but had kind of an abrasive personality. I was a little concerned that we would be going there for therapy and if that was the case, I felt like it may not be a good fit. She told me in the beginning that I could not help Daniel at all; I could not give him any cues or guidance because that would negate the whole test. I was not sure what she meant by that so I shutdown and watched, but after the third question that she ignored of Daniel’s, I jumped in. He was asking questions about the paint on the walls, what the different noises were, why things were beeping in the other room, why did the wall have scratches on it, on and on.

She continued to ignore him and tried to direct him to do his tasks.

I did let it go off and on throughout the testing, but when he was beginning to go into meltdown mode because she would not answer him about why the ceiling fans were turned off, I could not take it. I was getting angry. The thing about Daniel is that he is a very cooperative fella, he will do almost anything you ask, and he normally does remarkably well in these testing situations, but if you do not answer his first question, he will begin to panic and bombard you with billion questions. All she had to do was answer him directly and clearly for his first question and he would have been fine.

He was confused by her behavior.

I was too during some moments. Daniel was starting to lose it with her so we opted to take a break. As he jumped on the trampoline, he asked all kinds of questions about the new room we were in. She ignored him. At one point, I was trying to feel her out so as I answered another one of Daniel’s questions, I looked at her kind laughing and said, “He has questions all day.” She said, “Yes, I am used to it. I hear this all day long. You learn to drown them out.” What the heck?

Way to make my kid feel invalidated!

Not to mention all of the other kids she is working with. I understand the constant questioning with many different children is a lot to take. I understand that the questions could cause it to be very difficult to do her job if she is answering detailed questions all day long. I know it is exhausting I do it every day too. I also know that the questions can be ways for the kids to try to distract from doing things they do not want to do. However, I believe that it would have been better to at least build up a trust with my son so that he could do his testing without the added anxiety of feeling like he is not heard or feeling ignored. In this household, his questions matter. He is used to being heard and answered directly. When she did answer him, it was indirect and gave the impression that she was annoyed.

I know that she did not mean to put off that type of vibe, but she did.

It confused Daniel and caused him to feel anxiety when we got home. He went into non-stop question mode and would get upset at me when I did not answer the exact way he wanted. I believe he was reenacting the situation in his way. He did a phenomenal job with his testing. She even commented on how well he did. Apparently, by his psych evaluation she was expecting him to not pay attention and be very difficult to work with. I told her that the doctor who evaluated him met us at the local library. She drove in from Ohio that morning, set up in the middle of the library instead of one of the closed off rooms, and barely spoke with him.

The environment was distracting and she was impersonal.

Oh, well I gather it should work in our favor for getting the therapy and help that he needs. Still it is a bit frustrating. I forgot to mention that in the morning I received a call from a speech therapist. She said, “I just found out that I need to do an evaluation for Daniel by Monday, the only thing I have available is Monday at 11 am.” All of these appointments are at 11 how funny. So… we will be going back on Monday for that. I asked while I was there, “Do I have to fill out any more paperwork?” Thankfully, I do not. I have my appointments on Tuesday and that will be another day shot with school.

I am glad we have those break days to make up for all of this.

I was supposed to go to my cousin’s baby shower on Sunday, but I fear I will freak out on my one aunt that confuses me! Ha ha ha It is at her house, she put on the invite that it is a shower for my cousin, but also a party for “big sis” who is around five years old as well. (My cousin’s first daughter.) We were told to bring presents for her too, but at the very bottom, it says “No one under 13 yrs.old. There is more silliness, but it is all so goofy that I am just laughing. I have not told this aunt what is going on with me because she will plaster it all over fb and talk about how much I need prayer and that she is so concerned that I will die, blah, blah, blah, please pray, blah, blah. Sorry I am being facetious.

She really would do that though and it would not be sincere.

Good news, keeping busy and focused like this has helped me. I also talked to the special needs teacher that will be working with us and they plan to do all of the therapy virtually. I felt much better about that. If there are any specific needs that we need they may be done at the center we were at otherwise it will be virtual. Ariel and I spent some alone time out and about last night and that was good. Although, yesterday I could not stop crying all day long. I am not sure why the tears just kept coming. I believe it was a release from all of the stress, emotions, and change of schedule. I did not feel sad or upset – I actually had peace of mind and was calm. I think I will rest today I do feel rather tired.

Hope you all have a grandiose awesome Saturday!

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