Six years and counting

By Melissa Harris

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September 16, 2016

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2 Comments

My sweet boy.

It has been a while since I wrote just to you. Life with you is never dull - and I am so thankful for that. There are a few things I could do without- lets never have to be hospitalized for an impacted bowel again - ok? The reality is, you have overcome so much, but more than that, you have just become such a lovely and funny kid.

The leap from five to six is huge. Aside from all the growing and changing you did, things in your life really changed too. Just a small snapshot of some of the bigger things that happened in the past year:

Your 5th year of life was kicked of with your very own fan for your room. It may seem like a silly gift when you look back on it years later, but you love this fan.
You spent 3 nights in the hospital in December for an impacted bowel. It sucked. It really sucked. On the flip side, since that hospitalization, your bowel issues have gone away. You are off all medications and herbs that you have been on since you were nine months old. Its like being in the hospital this time cured you. Plus, it was on this trip to the hospital that you got Layla and Laura... and earned the nickname "Dr. Sam".
You got to spend Christmas in Tahoe - with a ton of real snow. With that came a reinforcement of your love of sledding.
You were fired by your gastroenterologist. This was huge!
You underwent your triannual IEP review - which led to a nine month fight for your mom with the Oakland Unified School District. I will spare you the details - but just know your mom fought for you and fought for you... and won. Nobody but nobody was putting you in an isolated special needs classroom.
You got to spend time at Lake Tahoe, playing with your sister and hanging out in the lake.
You mastered reading - before starting kindergarten. Oh wait, you mastered reading in TWO languages before starting kindergarten.
You graduated from preschool!
You started Kindergarten (at a spanish immersion school) and celebrated your first day with frozen yogurt. Did I mnention you started Kindergarten in a mainstream classroom. Without an aide - and kicked butt?! No... cause you did.
More than anything else - you made my life more fun just by being the big silly, happy, difficult, stubborn, funny, cute, loving, annoying (put that one in for your sister), all around amazing kid you are.

Keep being you baby - because you are amazing.

Comments

Tashia

November 27, 2016 at 4:19 pm

I’ve been reading your blog and you and your son inspire me. My second daughter is currently undergoing evaluations at her preschool, and it looks like she might be mildly autistic, but definitely needs speech therapy. We’re a bilingual household and my oldest daughter attends our neighborhood public dual-immersion school, and one of my fears right now is that we might be pushed out of getting our middle daughter into the same school when she is ready for kinder. How did you go about getting a SLP and speech therapy in Spanish? Are you paying for that out of pocket, does your insurance cover it, or did you somehow get the public school system to offer that service? I didn’t even realize that it was a possibility, but now I’m determined to get our daughter speech therapy in both of her languages, and I plan to fight for her right to attend the same dual-immersion school as her sister, if it comes down to that. Thank you so much for sharing your story

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melragent

January 4, 2017 at 1:10 pm

Hi Tashia. I am so sorry it took so long to respond to you. As I am sure you can guess, life is a bit hectic!

My son has only been evaluated in Spanish, but he does not receive any therapies in Spanish. Finding a Spanish speaking speech therapist is like finding a unicorn. In m=our case, having my son only receive therapy in one language has been a blessing. I firmly believe that Sam’s Spanish brain functions closer to grade level than his English brain. he is more conversational in Spanish than in English. I think having learned Spanish organically, has led to him being more comfortable in Spanish it’s one of the reasons I fought so hard to get him place at a Spanish immersion school. I felt it would set him up better to make friends and succeed socially.

If you want her in the dual-immersion school – fight for it.I have no regrets right now – at all.

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