A few weeks ago we received a progress report from the monkey’s speech therapist from school. It said he has shown minimal progress to the goals that were established in his annual IEP meeting.  And I’m going to be honest…  that just hurt.

I am guessing seeing it in writing just stands out so much more. It makes it feel so official, so true.

The monkey has a great team behind him. He has two private speech therapists, an occupational therapist, and a physical therapist.  At school, we have his teacher, his paraprofessional, and our amazing in home trainer.

So I should be happy right?  Feel blessed?  So why am I not?

We are in the process of changing Pediatric Neurologist and we had to get the notes from the old neurologist from 2 years ago, when we first found out he had autism.  Some of the things the notes say are:

1. Delayed speech /  gibberish
2. No nodding/pointing
3. Impaired social skills
4. Solitary play

I don’t know why I torture myself and re-read these notes.  Two years later and these notes are still true.  He still doesn’t talk.  He still plays alone….

They say to try and be positive.  Don’t compare him to other kids.  Celebrate his own milestones – even if they are small….   But sometimes that is just so hard to do.

I honestly feel this year he will talk.  He started saying “Ta” when he wants something.  This is huge.  At first I felt this was just our imaginary hope.  But then I heard it from this private therapists and from his teachers at school.  At home we refer to this year as the Monkey’s year.  This will be his year.

But we said the same thing last year.

So when is having hope too much????   Hope is a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen.  I have the expectation.  I have the desire…  I feel when he talks his social side will be amazing.  I want to have hope.  I fight for hope.

Until then….  all I can do is continue this battle.  I know I have to keep fighting for him.  I know that is what we are suppose to do.

Pick ourselves up.

Dust ourselves off.

And keep walking.

Until then…

This just sucks.