Day 12 of Better Hearing and Speech Month
Mother's Day and the "Normal" Stuff
I've been writing now for 11 days about CAS and how it pertains to our family. CAS is not the only thing we focus on as a family - there are plenty of other "normal" day to day things that Hubby and I have to juggle to make our family work.
Take this past week for instance - On Thursday, I had work obligations at a retirement, Bee-bee had ballet class and Hubby couldn't take time off of work to get her there and back. Thankfully my dad was able to pick her up and a good friend was able to drive her to my work at the end of the party, meanwhile Cha-cha's daycare provider kept him later than usual for me so we could make it all work. It's a fine balance that any parent has to go through to make the dance of parenting work. On Friday, Bee-bee had Irish Step, so again, I had to make sure I got out of work on time, to pick her up at school on time, to get her home and dressed, to pick Cha-cha up on time, and then to get to dance on time. Hubby had a night out with his friends, so I did the bedtime routine. Saturday was speech for Cha-cha and soccer and team pictures for Bee-bee, a trip to a museum for Cha-cha and my cousin and her son, and then Hubby took the kids out to dinner so I could go out with a friend and he did the bedtime routine. Of course then when I came home, we were getting ready for bed and Hubby let our dog Buddy outside, and sure enough, he was sprayed by a skunk. At 11:00pm at night. I don't think either one of us were happy, or had a lot of patience at that point - but we bathed the dog and I re-washed my kitchen floor and got myself to bed by 12:45am.
Today was Mother's Day. Hubby had soccer, I had a visit with my sister, the kids and I baked brownies, and later on today we headed up to visit with my parents at their house. We had some magical moments today - the two kids cuddling on the couch, the kids seeing the magical fairy doors that "appeared" in my parent's crab apple tree, Bee-bee finding money in behind the fairy doors, eating popsicles on the rock with Cha-cha, watching a dog try to swim in a puddle, and Hubby taking Bee-bee to the carnival near our house. All of these things could be "normal" in any family - special needs or no special needs.
So where does Apraxia fit into all of this? Well, it's integrated into who our family is. We had to remind Bee-bee many times not to butt into Cha-cha trying to talk. We had speech yesterday that sort of turned into a disaster because he wanted a certain toy from Toys R Us that he perseverated on from the night before. We paused countless times so we could understand what Cha-cha was saying. We had to translate to Bee-bee what Cha-cha was saying, even though he said it and she refused to listen to him because he didn't say it directly to her. We repeated many times what we thought he said back to us. We asked him many times to speak up. We asked him many times to make eye contact. We asked him many times to repeat 2-4 times what he said so we could try to understand him. We sat through at least 5 screaming in frustration tantrums today alone. Do "normal" families have to go through this? They probably do, just I don't know to what extent, because this is our "normal."
1 comment:
I still repeat back much of what T says though most of it I actually understand the first time he says it - it's habit now, though. We still have to remind him to slow down and look at us when he talks. We still have times when it takes a lot of work to figure out what he's saying - it's only once or twice a week, generally, though. We still have screaming fits in frustration - they're fewer but even bigger then they once where when they happen.
As you say, this is our "normal".
Happy Mother's Day!
Post a Comment