Stuff the term "chicken and egg", I'm going for whac a mole!
Oatie and the review meetings!
Well My own life feels like I am a plate spinner... lol!
And then Oaties' life feels like Whac-a-mole...
You have the diagnosis... and then there is the forward and the backwards steps and then you press here and this pops up so you hammer that and then elsewhere pops up... and well it is just "Whac-a-mole".
I didn't even know what this was called in North America, I have an aliens version of it from the UK. I just remember loving playing it at fairs when I was a kid...
For example... Oatie was getting beautiful structure from his ABR therapy... but then became agoraphobic as we wheeled him everywhere so he did stay and not undo the hours of work... (by him mangling his body further).
However, with the Agoraphobia came missing out on his childhood of exploration as he couldn't go and see stuff for himself and had us wheel him where we wanted to go rather than his older sibs who would tug your hand to go and look at something.
So then came the walker,...the walker made me cry.... on the one hand, he started to LIVE and be a person rather than a kid with CP. He had choice and made decisions where to go and what to look at... HOWEVER (what made me cry) was how he is mangling his body in the walker...
So then came the exploration of the service dog... multi fold of the companionship, love, and balance aid from the dog (we are waiting for the dog it might be another year until we get the dog) but that will be way better than the walker!
With the walker, he matured enough to go to Kindergarten where he has the best friends in the class that anyone could ask for... everyone loves him in the class and he has genuine friendships... genuine-genuine... (not manufactured by parents).
So this year, he's done amazingly, he has closed a 2 year gap on his speech to one year... which is brilliant! (partly from him using the walker as he's been able to walk where his peers do and be involved in every aspect of the class too).
So today we have his "where to next... meeting". The speech lady on the phone said that she is happy for him to go to g1... but then at the meeting today they were wondering whether him repeating K all over again would be a good idea....
Both Oaties dad and I were like no! (the K teacher is actually the nicest teacher in the entire school and she is brilliant) so nothing against anything.
I said, that if it was the preschool class that he was in, then maybe (to get away from them would be worth it)... but he actually has a "family"in his class, they play and interact and LOVE him, and that to me is priceless... totally priceless.... you can have extra maths lessons and language lessons, but you can't buy genuine friendship! To us, that network of friends that he has around him at the moment are part of his support network! For him to see his old friends go up a year and him start all over again with building friendships would crush him. Also a lot of his current classes older siblings are in his siblings classes so it adds even more strength to his network... as their big brother or sisters are friends with his brother and sister.
Oatie as we know is very bright... and by holding him back would really kick his confidence... (the school saw a huge improvement in him this year and didn't want him to find grade 1 too hard), my point was at some point he will have to leave kindergarten and my eldest ended up repeating Kindergarten twice (because we moved country) and it switched him off from learning for years.... in the end I stuck him in pure French, (he could only speak English) in Grade 4... and for the first time ever Oatie's big brother has had to work. (his big brother gets like 100% in his PAT) tests.
So I said, if he didn't leave K, and just stayed there, then what happens next year and the year after and the year after... Sometimes you need to release the bird and let them soar! Oatie has me, his dad and his older two sibs to help him as well with his school work.
So we made the decision to let him leap to Grade 1 with the rest of his class. It will mean that he will have to do full days at school as that was their condition. So I agreed thinking that we might just re-arrange Oatie's day to fit in his ABR. But I would like their support back to get him to the swimming pool which is 400m from the school if that a few times a week and get him in the adaptive riding programme too.
I said that if a few times a week he could swim at lunch, it will get rid of the recess fatigue of being in his walker, it's relaxing for him, he gets CV workout too and I found it realigns his focus to learning.
With Oatie, Skiing, riding, swimming and skating, it will also help him to mature up too.
So, now I need to try and work everyones schedules out, so I can schedule in his ABR and full time school now for September!
So hence it's like Whac-a-mole, you push here and then that area of his life pops out and so you push that back in and well... that with the plate spinning....
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