How Do YOU Spell Relief?

I've been dreading today. We had a meeting scheduled with various special ed teachers at the school in regards to our son Izzy Man. He was born 3 months premature, and has some delays and behaviors that we were concerned about. A month or so ago we got the ball rolling for a bunch of testing and evaluation to be done so we could hopefully figure out what was wrong and what could be done to help him.

As the weeks have been marching along, getting closer to the meeting day, I was feeling increasing dread. It's one thing to know that some abstract this or that is not quite right about your child. It's an entirely other thing to be sitting at a table full of concerned experts who might give you some sort of official diagnosis of something you don't want to hear. I was so afraid that they were going to tell me something I didn't already know, or something I didn't want to believe. I was afraid of hearing the word "autistic." I was afraid that they would look at me and think that my son has problems because I'm not a good enough mother. I even had paranoid thoughts that they would decide that my child would be better off without us, and take him away. I know that sounds extreme, but I think that when you have a child whose life began with other people calling the shots, locked up in the NICU breadbox for 5 weeks, you always have some part of you that is afraid that somebody else can rip your life out from under you through no fault of your own.

So, anyhow, I forced myself to cling to rational thoughts through the weekend, made it to today, and my husband and I attended the meeting. Happily, there were no big scary words used to put a label on my Izzy Man. We didn't learn anything we didn't already know. We were able to get a good plan going that should help him to improve in all areas of concern, and it seemed that everyone in attendance thought that although he is delayed in some areas, with help he should catch up and be fine eventually. It was very encouraging to hear that. It's what I already believed most of the time, but it's nice to have someone else's opinion to hold onto for the days when you worry that your child might not ever be quite right.....

The guidance counselor was in attendance at the meeting and he told us that our two oldest children were some of the very finest students he has ever had in class for his entire teaching career, and just complimented us on them up one side and down the other. That was really great, and nice to know that nobody thought we were such wretched parents as to warrant taking our kids away!

Other relief situations included me having a sort of epiphany the other night as I was ruminating about how much I dislike doing duty in the 3s and 4s class. I realized that all I needed to do was send a little note to the lady who drafted me into the job, telling her that I quit. So, I got that sent out in the mail on Saturday, so as of today I should be officially off that hook. Yay! Why didn't I think of that sooner?

My UTI seems to have been healed through the help of homeopathy and holistic care that I did for myself over the weekend. Yay!

My 12 year old seems to be almost all recovered from his illness.

So, it may be a Monday, but it's a good one.