ChildFind & other things.

"If you heard a raven say such horrible things as the ones you may have heard in your day today... would it make you choose your own more carefully around the ones you love?" - Ravens in the Library, SJ Tucker

These words have been stuck in my head for two days now. Usually when words, songs, negative thoughts, etc are racing and repeating in my head, it's because I've had dairy. I can't imagine how that would have happened in the last few days--I've been especially careful--and so I am choosing to hear these words as a message.

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The Childfind appointment was extremely interesting. The woman who played with Elijah and talked to us was very engaging, very nice, very patient. She and I talked a lot about Sensory Processing Disorder/Sensory Integration Dysfunction, and how it affects Elijah and how it affects everyone else in the household. She was interested in us, and did not dismiss the idea of gfcf. She gave us a list of heavy work activities, and leads on some other resources and some book names. She's sending me some information and a couple of chapters of a book to help with our work with Elijah. I liked her a lot.

On the evaluation front, it looks like they're not especially worried, and may only check up on him again in a few months. They may tag him with Sensory Processing Disorder, which doesn't make him eligible for any services. If we hadn't been doing any work, if we hadn't gone gluten and casein free, I'm pretty sure he would have retreated further than he already had (loss of language, loss of most forms of interaction), and they would have taken one look at him and given all the help necessary.

There are two ways to look at this:
1. Helping Elijah ourselves at home means he won't get the help he needs outside of home.
2. Doing all the work we've done means he won't NEED the extra help outside.

I can make the argument that this is a child who has come back from a loss of language, through so much work from his family. We need help to continue that work. Please, don't dismiss the problems because of the progress and help us. Please. Don't penalize Elijah because we've done so much work with him. Don't penalize us because we've put our hearts and lives and sleep aside so we can take do this work for our child.

Will I remember that next Tuesday?

I have to.

Good morning, world. Today will be a good day.

Mama Coyote