And...we add more therapy sessions...

A little over a month ago, Ms. Becky, our amazing cert-AVT, explained that Thomas was ready to reduce his AVT sessions to every other week. This proclamation scared me because we have been in weekly AVT since Thomas was 7-months old and he is still behind his hearing peers but, making fast progress. She said that he was ready, picking up language in more "natural" environments, not necessarily in therapy, and he was doing great work in school. So, I trusted Becky and I have to say that she was right. He continues to make great progress...even though I miss seeing Becky every week (selfish, I know).

Yesterday, I took our little man to Our Children's House in Grapevine Texas for a behavioral feeding evaluation. The feeding therapist worked with Thomas on his challenges with non-crunchy textures and saw all the things that I reported in writing...so assuming that we get insurance approval (fingers crossed), we will start feeding therapy twice a week, every.single.week until he is over this issue. So, losing one therapy session every other week will be replaced by two sessions every week...sigh!

I left the facility crestfallen. I was on the verge of tears the entire trip to Thomas' auditory oral preschool. These are just some of the questions that went through my mind: Why did he have to go through this? Hasn't God challenged him enough? With these new therapies, we will have to pull Thomas out of his mainstream preschool and add additional afternoon sessions with his A/O class. Will he still continue to develop his language at his current pace? If he is ready for mainstream preschool again next year, will I be able to find a spot for him at his new school or another one of the same caliber? Will he be ready for kindergarden in a year and a half? Will this feeding therapy really work? How long will it take to complete? Selfishly, how am I going to do this? I can't go back to Thomas vomiting again at every meal...how is this all going to work?

I dropped Thomas off at school and watched him walk with his best friend and his teachers into school and I lost it. I simply saw yet another hurdle for Thomas... and said aloud, "How are we going to do this?" The tears flowed and flowed and flowed as I tried to safely drive home.

I have to admit that I've been in a funk ever since...maybe needing to cry some more...maybe needing God to slap me in the face with His direction, not mine...maybe it is time for a little vacation from the kids before we start this new therapy...maybe I need to stop being selfish, suck it up and just do it...because the fact is...we are adding more therapy sessions.