Mama, You Were Given These Children – You. – Living With Intention and Giving Myself Grace

I don’t know where to begin really. I feel thankful and relieved. Prayers were answered in a big way. We’re shown, once again, that we’re headed in the right direction. I not only can feel we’re headed in the right direction, but I can SEE we’re headed in the right direction.

We had Kylan’s Special Audiologist appointment on Wednesday that his pediatrician actually wanted him to see a while ago. We wanted to take it one step at a time and see what the Neuropsychologist thought as well. After her agreeing and recommending that be a next step, we made the appointment.

I looked up what a Special Audiologist will do and what could possibly be the outcome. That’s when my husband told me to get off the internet. However, I wasn’t looking for some terrible diagnosis, but I wanted to be informed and prepare myself for what may be. I wanted to understand more. I guess that’s what kids do to you. Or to me, at least. But when I read ‘Auditory Processing Disorder; Treatment can help, but this condition can not be cured.’ I panicked a little bit. I immediately texted my sister who talked me out of all my dramatic thoughts. Lol. I knew he’d be ‘OK,’ but to possibly hear that he could have a life long condition of not understanding communication with others, would be hard. It’s already been a very challenging and exhausting 4+ years.

I can feel myself getting anxious when people ask him simple questions like, “which color would you like?” when offering him something, and him just staring at you because a) he doesn’t understand what you just asked. Or b) he doesn’t know his colors well enough to say he’d like the red sucker. I feel like I have to explain who he is to everyone. He looks like a sweet little 4 year old boy. And he IS a sweet little boy. But I constantly feel on edge as if everyone’s judging my mothering skills when my child can’t respond to a simple question. Sounds dramatic, but in this day and age when seeing what everyone else’s 4 year olds are doing right at your fingertips, these are my constant thoughts. But yet I’m so proud of who he is. He brings us so many laughs. Every single day. And he doesn’t think he’s different from anyone else. I wish adults had the same blinders on that young kids do!

I’m trying to document him with pictures and videos as much as possible so that we can look back and see just how far we’ve come. Especially on the more challenging days. The video below, is one I posted in my IG account on March 11th. It’s now March 30th, and although I haven’t had him do a talking video recently, he’s already talking so much more…And making more sense 😂

This next video he had me take just this past week. I absolutely love his enthusiasm and excitement he has for everything.

We have a ways to go. But I want to put these in my back pocket. He’s already improving and changing so much, but these videos bring me so much joy.

We did received the awesome news right away that he he does NOT, however, have auditory processing disorder, and his brain is processing information the way it should at 4 years old. Yay!!! His hearing is on point and we can cross that off our list!

His Speech Pathologist at school called last week saying how much he’s improved the past month and doesn’t seem ‘stuck’ any longer either, but is making amazing progress in his therapies. Which means the treatment plan we have him on is working! We’ve been noticing little changes at home, but to hear that they’re seeing changes at school as well is so encouraging! He definitely still has his moments (we knew it would be a process and not immediate results), but his daily behavior has already been improving, he can calm himself enough at night to fall asleep before his brothers (this is huge!), and his speech and language is also developing so much. It really is so cool to watch! Trav and I just sit and laugh and smile with amazement at some of our conversations we have with him.