Day 6 for DownS / Sensitive Saturday...

Okay...today was jam packed with emotions...

Today we had our home study. We flew around, almost getting everything we wanted to do finished. Here and there, and not making it to the grocery store at all! We all arrived home 30 minutes before the visit, wiping away traces of peanut butter sandwiches and spilt milk just in the nick of time.

When she left I could not get the thought out of my mind that I did not say what I should have said...or that I should have said more, or that I should have said something more profound. Some how I should have had her convinced before she left that Artie was home, here with me.
I didnt feel that she wasnt convinced, I just felt strongly that if she were convinced it would follow that she would do or say something that sealed our fate together as it should be. Of course she did not. She was simply documenting.

It left me anxious and unfinished. I dont feel she stayed long enough to get the full story. His story and our story. DH walked around afterwards smiling, saying "that went great! Dont you think so?"

It must have gone well if he said so because he has a better sense of people. I tend to be a little intense. I find myself thinking "what!!? YOU are trying to decide if he can stay?!?" while DH is looking at it like "great, lets finish up this business and sign!".

Afterwards, I deserved a good cry and a nap. But Artie and I ran away to the local kids museum. Our hiding place.

IS KIDS is a wonderful non profit museum with interactive exhibits. It is geared toward children with disabilites. Lots of sensory input! We explored a teepee and Artie ran his toes through a fake fur rug and looked suspicously at the babydolls in the middle. He banged on drums of all sizes and rolled on the floor turning over buckets of legos and swimming in them. He played with every thing he could get his hands on. He was reserved about the moon sand. He touched it with his thumb and grunted his disapproval. He loved the astro turf and little mower. All boy! He played with the big bugs in the garden and felt of all the differnt textures of the clothes in the dress up trunk. He popped big soap bubbles and giggled hysterically. We walked all over the place and played a lot.

Suddenly I had an insanely brilliant idea. There Artie was, standing at a big drum, stick poised in mid air to hit it and he dropped the drumstick. He looked down at it for a moment and then bent over and picked it up...and he did this not once, but twice. We walked over to the grocery store display and he took a basket that was filled with plastic apples. He followed the request to "take one out" over and over. When I told him "put one in" he completed it perfectly again and again.

The idea? To have his PT and OT there. Not in his home with his toys but on netural ground. He has been having difficulty cooperating and there have been comments that he was not able to follow the tasks he was asked to do because of temper tantrums. Okay, I felt he was not able to due to his cognitive level or maybe pain in his back. Bull...because here he is doing the same tasks that his OT has been trying to get him to do, without crying and fighting, for weeks. Sooo, maybe a change of scene? Cant hurt to try!

The owner of IS KIDS offered to open the doors to us early on Monday for the therapists to come and work with him. Can you get any better than that? I think we are gonna try it.

Standing there talking with the owner and seeing her obvious concern and care made me cry.

I was overdue anyway.