Every 6 months, Stevie has to be evaluated.  These evals determine whether or not he will continue receiving Regional Center Services.  If you don’t already know, he gets all 7 weekly therapy sessions and preschool through the Regional Center.  They are part of early intervention programs.  A fantastic resource, if you ask me!

But with these 6 month evals, come 6 month reports from all his therapists/teachers.  Reports that I have to read over and sign.  The reports have never been great.  Stevie is developmentally delayed.  They’ve never said any different.  And every once in awhile, I have to face it, head on.  It’s in writing.  In my face.  Plain old black and white.  My son is not performing up to the standards of a typical child.

Ouch.

Once he started preschool, I thought maybe we’d be getting more positive feedback for once!  But that hasn’t really been the case.  He is Mr. Popular with the staff, of course, but from a developmental standpoint there are a lot of notes like this:

“Stephen shows little interest in tabletop toys.  When handed objects, he would grab them and throw.”
“Stephen demonstrated little understanding of instructions and verbal requests.”
“Stephen would not line up cubes, imitate sounds or build a tower of 2-3 cubes after demonstration.”
“Stephen places non-edibles in mouth and cannot inhibit drooling.”
“Stephen is interested in his peers, but does not have the skills to engage with them.”
“Stephen does not appear to jabber or say 2 words, respond to verbal requests, imitate playful sounds, combine syllables or babble when talked to.”

They aren’t being mean, it’s just very matter-of-fact.  His scores are as follows:

Gross Motor Skills: 18 month old
Fine Motor Skills: 6 month old
Cognitive Learning: 9 month old
Language Skills: 8 month old
Self-Help: 14 month old
Social/Emotional Skills: 6 month old
“His true levels for these areas may be higher if Stephen would be willing to participate in the activities instead of throwing all the items presented to him.  It should be noted that he is unwilling to wear his glasses for the majority of the testing which may also have an impact on his scores.  It is recommended Stephen continue participating in his Early Intervention Program and receiving all his therapies.”

These are really hard scores to look at for a 2 and 1/2 year old.  I tear up a little bit typing it all out. AKA I’m a blubbering mess. I feel kind of embarrassed to tell everyone how poorly he is performing.  Well, maybe embarrassed isn’t the right word.  I’m more shy (?) to share this info.  Because I don’t want people to think of him as different.  Or judge him because he is.  The evaluation notes are lined with positive points too, but this is what I see.  This is what I struggle with.  What more can I do to help him?  How will he ever catch up? What if he never does?  It’s one of the hardest things to come to terms with when thinking about your baby growing up.

I surely cannot forget how far he has come.  20 months ago, he lay in a hospital bed, recovering from his second open heart surgery.  18 months ago, he could  barely sit up on his own.  6 months ago, he was hardly walking.  I would count his steps every single day, trying to improve, improve, improve  Now.  Well, now he tries to run everywhere we go.  He climbs stairs and ladders with very little assistance.  He crosses bridges.  He has learned only a couple new signs, but that’s more than he knew before he started!  He says MOM and HI with such enthusiasm.  Everyone in our neighborhood knows him. He is friendly and loving and hilarious.  And he’s damn cute, which counts for a lot.

So we keep moving forward.  Regional Center services will continue.  We will set new goals for Stevie. (And carry over a lot of the old ones.)  We’ll just hope that one of these days, we can get the report that we’ve been wanting to see all along.  And if that report never comes, then we’ll do what we gotta do then, too.  I have a feeling we will continue to challenge each other for some time to come.  He hates it, but I do it all out of love.