Razorbacks and Therapy

First of all, the Razorbacks are going to cause Rob to NEED therapy. 

But, having awesome friends, like Justin and Debbie and Becca and Drew, who threw AWESOME tailgates sure helps.

The spot they got us had SCENERY! What????

And a picture of a Hog pushing an Alabama thing in the ground. The team did not see this play apparently. Sigh.......

Now lets talk about an area of our life that we are WINNING! I am sure that, as faithful blog readers (bleaders?), you remember that we have had our ups and downs in the speech department with Rylan. There was the 2 year visit where the doctor didn't think there was a problem. There was screaming of the word "NURCH" in JC Penny, there was the moment Rylan asked me "what you doing?" that I, literally, cried because I read that asking a question is an absolute positive sign that all synapses in the brain are firing on demand.

At Rylan's 3 year visit, the doc agreed he needed speech therapy. The long therapin' process began January 2012.  We live in the boondocks, and live off one income, so we chose to go with the local Speech Co-op rather than drive 30+ miles and pay out the whazoo for therapy. This is helpful on the driving and moolah front, but seriously unhelpful in the "too many kids, not enough therapists, too much work, not enough pay" category of life. 

They told me he would need to get evaluated for both developmental and speech therapy. I thought he'd sail through the developmental and qualify for speech in 12 different ways. Ummmm....he qualified for developmental therapy in 3 categories and qualified for speech in only one. I was wrong. 

It took them FIVE. WHOLE. MONTHS. to accept Rylan to speech and developmental therapy. Lots of evaluations to work through. Lots of tape. Lots of crappity crap. They accepted him May 20. School let out May 28. They work on the school's schedule. Where am I going with this? They took 5 months to accept him, and accepted him in time to take a 3 month break. 

Over the summer, I did what I could with Rylan. I got lots of worksheets from sister Tammy (who, by chance is a speech therapist FOR KIDSSSS whoop whoop), worksheets off the internet, and we got Rylan (and Max) in an actual preschool that has provided lots of classroom time, lots of playtime, and lots and lots of social interaction. From our home-work and his 2 days/week at school, Rylan's speech has gotten so much better.

Now we are in September. School is in session. So is speech and developmental therapy**. We have a lady that brings us Hippy work (basically "preschool at home) on Tuesdays. On Wednesdays and Thursdays we go to the local elementary school for speech. When Max goes down for a nap, Rylan and do extra work so that we can show the Hippy teacher and the therapists just how awesome he is. 

I am amazed at Rylan. He is a hard worker and very good and attentive with his teachers and therapists. And, I am so, so, so, so thankful that all of these things have started. It is stressful to have somewhere to be and homework for a 3 year old, but GOOD stressful. For 2 years, Rob and I have carried this weight on our shoulders and it feels like there are many people helping us carry that weight now, and at the same time the weight is getting lighter and lighter.

Practicing cutting. I got a free subscription to Martha Stewart magazine a while back 

and I am more than happy to donate that stuff to Rylan to cut the shit out of. Martha is 

not my people. Her stuff is too difficult and she has an attitude. It carries through in her magazine.

 I do appreciate her help in getting Rylan mad cutting skills.

And brother gets a little developmental therapy as well. Side note.: Don't give Max scissors. If you like your skin, hair, table, cocker spaniel ect.

**If you are wondering why Rylan, who could climb to the top of a jungle gym at 1 year of age and has been able to get himself in and out of his carseat since he was 2 and can throw trash away, put stuff in the laundry basket for me and already knows his left and right feet qualified for developmental therapy in lots of categories, I'll tell ya. Rylan has trouble with things that go in order. He gets overwhelmed. He can't count to 10, but he can stack 13 blocks. He can't say his full alphabet at almost 4 but he can recite his favorite song. If I give him a paper with several items on it and ask him to count them, he starts out fine and then just names every number he's ever heard and looses patience. He doesn't hold a pencil right, he holds it like a baby does, with a fist instead of three fingers but he can work just about any toy he was ever given. In an older person, he would probably be tested for a form of dyslexia. Developmental therapy is helping him with this. And it is getting better. The best thing is that this is what they are good at and they give me direction for how I can help him. Thankful. Thankful. Thankful.

Chatty Kathy

Sometimes its hard to remember to update the good. Let's talk about Rylan's speech. We realized when Rylan was 18 months or so that his speech was not up to the level of his pals of the same age. Its been a few years of trying to get the doctor to refer him for speech and then to get him evaluated. After 5 months of evaluations, he has been accepted into speech therapy and will start in August (don't get me started on the fact that they took 5 months to EVALUATE my kid, right in time to go on summer vacation). I worked with him at home during this time, we added a day of daycare to increase his socialization and we eventually moved him to an actual school where they have curriculum and teach Spanish and sign language. I don't know if it was all of the above or one of the above or if he merely just needed a little more time to develop, but my darling boy is speaking in paragraphs these days.

"I have a lot of time to make up for, wanna hear about this stick?"

He still needs speech, but the words are there. A year ago I couldn't have told you that. I was concerned there was something else going on in there that was holding his words back, but they are there. They just need a little tweaking. Its heaven to be able to talk to him. Its heaven for him to have the ability to tell me his needs. Its heaven for him to tell me his feelings and his fears. Its heaven to hear "I love you to the moon, mommy."  And, for all the physical attributes that Rob gave Rylan, I have, apparently, given him the gift of gab.

With good language, comes the not fun part. The part that corrected me when I said "damn" the other day. He said, "no mommy, DAMMIT." Whoopsie. Or the part that used my words against me. One day I was having a mommy meltdown and he told me to "get yourself put together." He has started yelling "5 more minutes" like a freakin teenager when its time to get up for school and he informed me that I shouldn't have ice cream. Wh-What??????

I'll take it. I'll take the same question 1,000 times in a row. I'll take the correcting me and using my words against me. He rocks the casbah and I can't wait till the whole world can understand him like Rob and I can. The whole world can understand a whole lot more, and for that, I am thankful.