I cant believe it has been a month since I have last blogged. Life has been so crazy but I have been thinking a lot about what I have been wanting to write about but have never had a moment to sit and write out my thoughts. It has been a very eventful month. So many things going on. My thoughts have been racing in the last month and it has begun to feel overwhelming at times. Learning to rest in Jesus in the midst of chaos has been the theme this last month. There have been many opportunities the Lord has put before me to help me learn to rest. Most have been challenging. But if they were not challenging how would I learn right? Life would be easy and I may have just gone my merry way through life without experiencing the precious moments of hearing the gentle whispers of Jesus to my heart. Because of that this will be a two-parter that I pray will encourage you in learning to rest in Him and His promises. I pray that you will stay tune for the second half of this as I pour out my heart in my writing.
David will be starting pre-school on September 2nd and I CANNOT wait for him to start this new journey. I have enjoyed having him home. I have been blessed beyond measure to be able to be both a stay and home mom and work full time from home. However, it is truly time for him to be with his friends. I cannot provide all of the social needs that he has and quite frankly I think he needs to not be with mommy all the time. It will be sooo great for him in so many ways. He will have a daily routine of going to school and learning to be social and learn to share and so many skills that he is slow in developing for his age. I have perfect peace about the timing! His pre-school that he will be attending is a private Christian pre-school where he will get a Christian education by teachers whose goal is to not only teach him academically but to see him spiritually grow as well....even at his young age. He will learn about Jesus every day. The Lord has provided for his schooling to be paid for and we wont ever see a bill this year....the check for the whole thing has already been written. PRAISE JESUS from Whom ALL blessings flow! He will attend five mornings a week and will continue to receive speech and occupational therapy in school. His teachers are wonderful and obviously love the children that they teach every day. He will also be in an inclusive classroom with other children that are typical in their development that he can learn from as well. His special eduation teacher is so excited to be teaching him and has such great hopes for him!
We also had the IEP (Individualized Education Plan) process to complete. So many meetings. So many evaluations and observations of David by speech therapists, occupational therapists, psychiatrists etc. These were visits that were on top of his current therapy sessions. Those weeks were so exhausting both for me and for David. For two weeks he probably had 4 meetings each week between his regular therapy and his evaluations for the IEP process. It was insane. If I was exhausted I cant even imagine how stressed and tired he was. But it had to happen. If we were going to make sure that he was going to be able to receive the services he needed we had to go through this gruelling process. I was dreading the final IEP meeting. On most days that he was evaluated he was having good days. I was afraid that they would not see the realities of his struggles and would not agree with me about my concerns. David still is not eating like a typical child his age. He still continues to refuse texturized food. He will still get upset when presented with finger foods of any kind. I was so afraid that they would feel that he needed to be in an exclusive special education environment. I was dreading this meeting. However, the closer we were to this meeting the Lord was so faithful in giving me peace in my concerns. We went to this meeting and sat through a two hour long discussion as we walked through all of the evaluations. Finally we were at the part where we discussed his eligibility and needs. It was decided that he was eligible for services based on his diagnosis of Autism and would receive speech and occupational therapy several times a week for the entire year. I was so very grateful! However, the part that I was most grateful for was the section about the goals that they setting for him. There was not one thing that I disagreed with and to my surprise ALL the goals that were set were EXACTLY the things that I wanted them to do. I was truly amazed! The Lord had heard my cries. He had listened and He provided all that I felt David needed. I felt a little foolish as I thought about all of my anxieties and fears. How could I not trust Jesus to provide when He loves our son so much more than we do? What a thought!
And there was so much more.........
No comments:
Post a Comment