Progress: Slow and Steady

It seems the adage "slow and steady wins the race" applies to a great many things. This is terrible news for my impatience. However, there is progress, and that is the important part.




We've recently heard from the Children's Mental Health people. They are our best bet for a not-out-of-pocket assessment for Mad Natter. She's not going to be able to evaluate (yes, a second doc) for ADHD, largely because he's already on medication for it, and it's kind of cruel to pull him off it just for the purpose of curiosity. She is, however, willing to run a psychoeducational assessment for us. It's only been 18 months since we went, desperate for anyone to help us, but still. Yes, that was a little sarcastic. I figure I'm allowed. Anyway, it's been a long time coming, but now that we're making progress, it feels like it's all starting to come together.

We've been filling out parental assessments left and right as we go, as Mad Natter's medications are adjusted, new forms for each change, checking data-over-time. I like that, it tells me she's thorough, and I love thorough. The longer this process takes, the more blatant Mad Natter's gifted characteristics become. It will be interesting to see what this translates to in terms of professional assessment, and I'm looking forward to seeing what does and doesn't match my experience.

In the meantime, Mad Natter has completely turned around. Instead of being driven (like a train off rails) by his need for stimulation, he's an entirely different kind of driven - there's a focus there that I've not seen since he was very small. He puts together elaborate games, builds robots out of LEGO, and draws entire scenes - complete with supporting characters. What I said to Skeeve last night was that it was also like we'd taken the hyperactive/impulsive out of his actions, and channeled them directly to his mouth - my child cannot stop talking. He has to tell anyone who will listen all about whatever is on his mind, complete with explaining to his doctor how his lungs work for breathing, and how they are useful in helping the blood carry oxygen to the rest of his body - as if his doctor didn't already know that.  He is interested in anything and everything, and he's actually managed to express boredom recently - he knows all this, he's bored.  Which is, by the by, a radical shift from his usual bouncing all over the house, with nobody knowing what happened or why.

We're finally making progress. There's light at the end of the tunnel, and while the back of my mind is waiting for the other shoe to drop and that light to be a train, I'm finally beginning to believe it might actually be the brilliant sunshine we could finally really enjoy - as a family.