Re Evaluating

Recently we had the dreaded IEP meeting for my son - actually, mine are pretty okay. He's in the multiple-disability class you know, so it's always pretty much the same. The goals are simple: matching words to objects, putting blocks in a bucket, tolerating the stander for 45 minutes at a time, choosing the letters of his name and stamping his name on paper. Really the only thing that ever changes is the percentage of times he's expected to get the task correct.

Basically we read through all the extremely wordy, repetitious, and double-speaky government-drone-written paperwork (and OMG I feel for the teachers who have to read it to me - and it is required that they read it aloud). No big dealio.

I mean he is what he is - he's cute and often funny and generally filled with laughter...and typically teen with outbursts of temper and fighting me when I try to get him up in the morning and just being generally difficult. I don't usually think about his disabilities -  it's just like background noise and I don't notice. We have our routines and you do what you gotta do. He's my boy, I'm his mom, and that is that.

But sometimes it sneaks up on me - the momentary sadness that swamps every cell when we go over the results of the latest Callier-Azusa Scale test, and once again all areas measure in the 4-9 month old range.
He's 16 now so I think THIS YEAR it's not going to bother me - and then I see it and I feel my face turn red and my eyes fill with tears and I stare at the paper and nod so the teacher won't see me try not to cry. I'm sad because I know that it's never going to be any better. I'm not going to suddenly see a miraculous range of 1-2 years old, even.

And then I think of a funny story to say about something he's done and everyone laughs and the PE teacher pats my hand and tells me she loves my IEPs and looks forward to them every year and then the sad moment passes and everything is okay.

And I have a whole year to work on forgetting about it before we have to do it all again.