We've been keeping a secret from most of you for a while. Not specifically trying to hide it, just choosing not to bring it into the open. There is a difference. And I know some of you will get annoyed about this, but you're just going to have to deal with it. I want to tell everyone the outcome of it all, and in order to do that, I have to open the can of worms. Here goes.
A year ago at this time, Life got pretty stressful all at once. Big Chief's job contract changed drastically, we got pregnant, we bought a house ..... and we were concerned Little Cub might have Autism. I wish I was kidding when I said all those things happened literally in the space of two and a half weeks, but I'm not. Then, six weeks later, I had my second miscarriage. It's safe to say spring of 2008 was not a happy season for us.
I know everyone out there knows about 3 of the occurrences mentioned in that last paragraph, but the Autism thing will be new for a lot of you. It's been so long ago now and things have changed so much, I don't feel like going into all the trivial details, so I'll just sum up. LC was showing a lot of confusing character traits. They were confusing because each one of them could have meant Autism, Totally Normal Toddler, or anywhere in-between the two. We needed someone qualified to tell us which category his behavior fell into. So we went to a child psychology clinic and met with a psychotherapist a number of times. She spoke with us, observed LC, spoke with his leaders at both pre-school and the daycare he was still attending at the time, and workshopped his case with the other professionals within the practice. After two months, everyone had collectively decided that LC did not have Autism (phew!) but that he simply had a 'strong' personality and we could use some help with his behavior. (re-read yesterday's post for an illustration of this 'strong' personality of his) We were put on a waiting list for a particular type of family 'therapy' that is new in Holland (it originated in the States), and a spot opened up for this treatment last month.
So this brings us up to the present. We've processed all the Life changes that happened a year ago, and then some. We're accustomed to the costs of our lives, we've dealt with the miscarriage (which will probably be a life-long, ongoing process, to be honest), and are settled into the house. But it's the Autism Scare that's changed the most. Not only is LC absolutely unrecognizable from the child he was a year ago, but the 'therapy' we're getting is amazing. Seriously, all you parents out there are gonna be soooooo jealous. Wanna know what we get?
Freakin' SuperNanny, and paid for in full by our insurance! Once a week we're in a specific room with a two-way mirror, headphones in our ears, with the psychiatrist talking us through exactly what to do. Holy crap, how cool is that?! I will be posting all the information about this later, complete with photocopies of all the handouts we've been given, but I needed to write this blog first to lay the groundwork of the story. In a nutshell, the therapy comprises of two parts. The first is just playing with LC and learning how to interact with him in very specific ways and on his level. It's more difficult than it sounds. Once we graduate from this part (which is entirely up to us to learn the skills to a certain degree of mastery) we move on to where LC learns to obey us and do the things we ask on our level. That's when the fun really starts. :-) So far, the play part hasn't been all that challenging, because that isn't where our problems lie. We have another appt on Friday and we desperately want to 'graduate' then because we're going to need her help when he starts school. Send positive thoughts our direction, please!
So that's my confession. It's actually a very good thing, in that we're getting personalized parenting coaching for free. Every parent's dream! The downside was that we had to go through some pretty rough times to get to this point. Never mind. Yin, yang, 'to every thing there is a season' and all that. Maybe this means spring 2009 will be the light contrasting 2008's darkness.
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