Humble Pie

Yep, I got a slice last week. Hard to swallow, but I'm thankful nonetheless. If you've been following us for a little while now, you'll now that our sweet little firstborn, Grant, hasn't been real interested in talking. We started noticing a delay between his first birthday and 18 months. The pediatrician pushed me to have him evaluated, but no, my son was NOT going to have a delay of any kind. He was fine, he would figure it out, right?

I finally swallowed my pride around his second birthday when we hadn't noticed a change in his speech and got involved with First Steps. He qualified for services and it was the right move to get him regular speech therapy. He's done well, we think, but we have nothing to compare it to. He uses sign language (which Lilly has picked up on!) and is growing his small vocabulary every week. My personal favorite is what he calls his little sister...sounds something like Woowee. Adorable! So, part of the process for First Steps is to transition him out of the program around his third birthday. We're there. Already. Yikes!

Long story short...he had his evaluation in a preschool type setting two weeks ago and it was confirmed that he is still well below average on speech and language development. I really fought back the tears as the evaluation team reviewed their interactions with Grant. They didn't sugarcoat it...he needed help. But, they are also confident that he'll do well with continued therapy. He'll be placed in a special education preschool class for three days a week as long as he needs it...most likely right up until kindergarten. The school is less than 4 miles from our house and they even provide bus transportation. WOW!!! He starts next week and we meet his teacher on Thursday. I have to buy him a backpack :( Not ready for this!

As a mother, I've really been struggling with his "diagnosis". It's not even that big of a deal...I mean geez, he just has a speech delay. I'm confident he'll be a fully functioning member of society, but I feel responsible. I should have been doing more. More flashcards, more sign language, more this, more that...who knows. I'm finding out that it's easy to beat myself up.

So here's where the humble pie gets served. I walk out of the building after his review, now crying, getting so angry with myself. Angry that I'm upset. I mean, what do I really have to be sad about? Grant is happy, healthy, safe, provided for, loved, etc. I get in my car and pray (thank you God for being on-call 24/7!) asking for him to humble me, remind me that I am a good mother, and to help me appreciate what a blessing he is in our lives. He answered those prayers in so many ways over the last week...it would be too long of a post so I'll spare you the details.

I guess the point of all this rambling is to remind all of us to be humble - being thankful in all of life's circumstances, good or bad, big or small. Oh, and pray that I get through the fact that my son is officially enrolled in our local school system...how can this be?? He's not allowed to grow up yet!!