Happy tears are flowing

Recently at the place where Elijah receives outside speech and physical therapy, his therapists tested some of his adaptive skills to see how well he knows how to do things like get dressed and wash his hands. And, well, he just didn't know how to do any of these things. At first I felt like a pretty terrible mother for not having taught him these skills. I carried this weight around with me for a couple of weeks before I talked to Elijah's wonderful ECSE teacher about it.

She reminded me that we have not had the opportunity to teach Elijah a lot of adaptive skills because of his delayed gross motor development. Think about how difficult it would be to pull up your pants or go to the sink and wash your hands without being able to walk or stand independently. He isn't able to do lot of the tasks that fall into the "adaptive" category because not being able to walk greatly hinders him.

In order for Elijah to have qualified for the ECSE preschool that he will be going to in February (yay!), it was required that he need assistance in two main areas. A few months ago, those two areas were clearly gross motor and speech. Now that he's talking like a superstar, his two new areas are gross motor and adaptive skills.

We sat down and chatted with a team of amazing ladies yesterday regarding Elijah's IEP (Individual Education Plan) for special education. I choked back tears throughout the entire meeting because I just could not believe the amazing things that were being said about him and the positive things that were written on the report lying on the table in front of me.

The speech pathologist spoke first and she said that Elijah falls well within the normal range for speech (minus articulation), so her services are no longer needed. WOW! The occupational therapist said that, again, Elijah falls well within the normal range and that HER services are no longer needed, either. WOW again! The one therapist he does still need is his physical therapist (she will help him with both his gross motor and adaptive skills delays), so his PT wrote out some great objectives for him to accomplish while he is at school.

Elijah will start preschool on February 23rd! He will go for 2.5 hours, two mornings a week. His teacher and PT set some challenging yet attainable goals for him, so they will be working with him on his specific needs each time he is in the classroom. A lot of his goals have to do with him using his walker and this makes me smile. I love the thought of my little Elijah cruising down the school hallways in his walker! I asked him yesterday if he was excited about going to school and he giggled like he was the happiest kid on the planet. I don't know if he truly knows what "school" means, but he will get to find out soon enough!

I am so happy that he qualifies for this preschool program. I believe it will be extremely beneficial for his development in all areas. I think he is a kid who will really thrive in school. We met his teacher yesterday, and we already know the speech therapist who will also be in the classroom, and we love both of them. I am also happy that Elijah is doing well enough to get rid of speech and occupational therapy through the school district! (He still gets speech every other week through his outside therapy and will get assistance with articulation from the ST in his classroom.) Six months ago, we never would have dreamed that all of this could be a possibility before he turned three!

And, I keep thinking about the dream I had about one year ago. That pretty much sums up the rest of my happy tears.

I am so so proud of my little boy.