Feb 12 2009
Beautiful Brillant
F is like no one else I know. I love her spontaneity, and he way that she looks at the world. The way that she speaks what she thinks. I love that she thinks differently. Is unique. But she learns differently as well. And that is hard. Hard in a million little and diffrent ways. Hard in a handful of big and dificult ways. F has ADHD, Aspergers, and Sensory Input Disorder. We have know for certain about the ADHD since she was 3. Suspected the other two for about as long. In preschool her teacher knew right away. I knew before. I knew when she walked and never crawled. I knew when she was climbing out of her crib and her play yard before she was walking. I knew when she took forever to talk. F was my third, and while I know that all kids are diffrent, she was just a little more diffrent.
When we first found out that she has these issues we where told that she was to bright to get help. That until she started failing, fell behind, that there was nothing that the school district could do to help. She was allowed OT becuase she was so far behind in her fine motorskills. At the same range as her baby brother, 18 months younger than her. When she got her OT, the therapist found she had to address F’s sensory issues just to get her to focus so that they could do the OT for her motorskills. So inadvertantly she got both. We moved from NY to MO and she lost even that. Here she didn’t qualify for OT becuase she had improved from what she had been getting. Sadly when her re-evaluation would have come in NY she would have lost services there as well for the exact same reason.
She is in 1st grade now. She is failing. She has finally laged behind. We have a behaviorist now. We are about to start meds for her ADHD. We are getting her evaluations and more than likely OT again as she has lagged once more. However I am having issues with her teachers. I have explained time and again what her issues are. What is going on with her. And both of these women send me notes home almost daily telling us how she refuses to pay attention. How she is smart but won’t focus. How she needs constant redirection. I don’t know what it is they want us to do. We are well aware of all this. We have a hell of a time with just homework with her. There are nights that it takes my husband and I as well as D and S to get her to do it. Sometimes she will work better with her siblings than for Doug or I. Other nights not. I wrote my millionth letter back tonight, but I am so frustrated. The thing that sucks the most however is the fact that no matter how hard this is for me, or our family, or those two *insert appropriate swearword* teachers, IMAGINE what it must be like for her. How confusing and frustrating it must be for her. She gets so upset. So flustered. She is very bright. Her one teacher actually made the comment that she doesn’t behave like a normal child. I was so angry, and then I just cried.
F isn’t normal. But I don’t say that with the conotaion that that is something bad. Never. F is diffrent. F is brilliant and beautiful. And I feel like I have let her down.
