Its weird.  Life sometimes hits you like a tornado, tossing you about here and there, disorienting you, tearing you apart.  Then, like that, everything is eerily calm and your left wondering what the hell just happened.  That was this week.  A bit of a blur post IEP madness...going through the motions on auto pilot, literally trying to recover from trauma.

I totally get how dramatic that sounds but its candid and its honest.  It's like the first time you take your kid to Regional Center when they're little for "Baby Clinic."  A room full of people stare at your kid and ask you a million questions.  You're already terrified...you have to be...you're there.  You wouldn't be there if everything was "Jake" and moving along swimmingly.  You are at your absolute most vulnerable moment.  You're afraid for your kid, you're being grilled, and you're simultaneously instinctively "protecting" your kid.  I'm what clinicians call "an under reporter."  I tend to be biased in my answers about the girls because if I can find some hair of logic in what they are, or aren't, doing...I don't consider it pathological.  I don't feel like it should count against them on that checklists of developmental, social, or psychological deficits.  Hell, I'm often explaining why it makes them significantly brighter and more efficient than a neurotypical person.  Now, I totally get that these checklists aren't out to get anyone.  They are there to identify areas of need so that help and support can be rendered.  I'm a psychologist, for fuck's sake.  But I have to tell you, when its my own kids it sure doesn't feel helpful...especially when those holding the key to the help are indifferent, judgmental, or just clueless.  Fast forward past those early days to school days and the IEP.  Now you're in a situation where you are often forced to point out and drive home your kid's weaknesses and deficits just to get services.  That's horrible for any parent, torture for "an under reporter."  I want to tell you how great my kids are, I don't want to point out every heartbreaking difference or deficit...yet that's what they make you do.  They point out all of the minuscule areas in which your kid has made progress.  I say minuscule because they make the goals as such so that they can be measurable and attainable so it can look like they're doing something for your kid.  Sure they're progressing, they should be...just because they have a disability does not mean that they cease to grow up and mature.  And, yes, they progress slightly more than they may have otherwise in the areas where they are getting the support...but the progress is only as vast as the level of supports given.  But I digress, so they point out all of these wonderful things about your kids...then its your turn to point out everything that's "wrong" with your kids and to even argue with them about how "bad" your kids are doing...and they look at you like you're a huge asshole who doesn't love or appreciate your own children.  And that, my friends, is where the trauma comes in.  You end up in tears, begging for services for your jacked up kid and they look at you like you're the shittiest, most ill informed, ignorant parent on the face of the earth.  Ugly, very ugly.

So, this week has been one for regrouping and processing.

Tonight we set a leprachaun trap.  Last year we almost caught him.  He/she escaped, but not without losing a shoe.  We are very hopeful that it will return and we will bait the trap with the shoe.  This year we looked at the shoe to makes guesses about the size of this leprachaun based on its shoe size and we are confident that we have a better trap.  Nixi has offered up her Easter basket from last year and we're terribly excited to see what's in there come morning.  Happy St. Pat's day!

Sarah