My Boys

by Iteach

Have you ever seen a child have a melt down at a store? The kind that makes your eyes open wide and you whisper under your breath, thank goodness it is not my child. When I was in my 20's I use to see this and think "When I become a mom my child won't do that". After all I'm a teacher, I'm good with children. Also, I have done a lot of babysitting and I was a proud Aunt. That is exactly what I kept telling myself and I believed it.

Then at 32 I had my first child and I was totally prepared. I couldn't wait to share all my knowledge from teaching and babysitting with this beautiful baby boy Philip. The first year was smooth. He was a very happy , active, and a gorgeous baby. Therefore, at 12 months we said lets have another one since we are so good at this and we did rather quickly. Well, after 12 months we started to notice many changes with our bundle of joy.

He was crawling and walking at the right milestones that the baby books all predicted. So that was good news. However, I noticed he was like a pinball. He was very active, so active that he didn't make much eye contact. Always on the go like a car motor. Also, he didn't talk, climbing my kitchen cabinets were more important to him. I had my hands full and I was having another one real soon. I kept promising my hubby that the next baby would be calm and I believed it.

After baby boy number two was born, Matthew, I knew it was time to talk to the doctor about Philip's lack of speech and behavior. He became that child that screams in stores. Our doctor had the same concerns as I did and we set up an appointment with Early Childhood Specialists. Three specialists came to my house to observe Master Philip. They were very friendly women and helped ease my anxiety. The next week we met again for all the results from the battery of tests that they performed on him. The results were developmentally delayed with speech & language delays. I totally agreed with their assessment, but it was still very hard to hear. After the meeting I went to McDonalds and order three large orders of fries. I was crying and eating them at the same time. I was thinking about my options-go into denial which is easy to do or face the music. As you can guess I faced the music full force.

For a whole year we saw three specialists every week. A developmental therapist, speech & language therapist and an occupational therapist. We had drive to Freeport which is 40 minutes to receive these services, but it was worth it. I started to notice differences with him and that was a relief. He still wasn't developmentally ready , but at least he was making progress.

At the age of three we had him tested for the special ed. pre-school. Of course he qualified and I was very pleased with the services he would be getting at the pre-school. However, I must admit, at times I felt a little ashamed. People would ask me where does your son go to pre-school and I would say Wallace. Everyone in the town knows that Wallace is for special ed. children. I hated saying that word "Wallace". I just wanted people to see what a fun loving child he was and that he was getting the best help.

He continued to thrive at Wallace, but he still just wasn't where he should be developmentally. After another evaluation we decided to put him on ADHD medicine to see if that would help slow him down. It was a very hard decision and scary. Thankfully, it helped a lot. All of sudden he started talking in complete sentences. He was starting to count and learn his colors. It was amazing what he was accomplishing. It helped enough for the school to drop his developmentally delayed label. He still has articulation problems with his speech, but his vocabulary is huge.

Did the magic pill solve everything? Heavens, no! We still do intervention with a therapist every week. He goes to a social worker to work on how to pull himself together when he feels out of sync. We were always in constant contact with his kindergarten teacher who was fabulous. Academically, he ended kindergarten right on average. We did enroll him in summer school to help with transitions since that has always been difficult for him.

Did Matthew follow Philip's footsteps? He sure did! There went my theory that the second one is calmer. LOL

Sometimes I feel so alone with all what I have been through with my boys. I really don't have girlfriends in town that had many obstacles with their toddlers. However, whenever I see a child in aisle seven on the ground screaming in front of his frantic parents, I just smile to myself. Nope, I'm not alone. :)