She Grew Up

I sat there today, staring at her, talking to her, and simply wondering when it happened. When did she grow up? Overnight it seems. Or maybe over a summer, but either way it happened. This beautiful young lady (who tries to push me over the edge on a daily basis) is that same little girl that I gave birth to 9 years ago. 9 years. It seems like so long ago but also just like yesterday. I'm afraid to blink again. She will be driving and having a boyfriend and then leaving home. My baby.

 She read the menu and picked what she wanted and ordered her own food and drink.  She even said yes ma'am and no ma'am and please and thank you to the waitress.  Somedays I beat myself up thinking I have failed her and then we have a day like today and I know things are going to be ok.  We spent most of the day together, just the 2 of us, and we both needed it.  

Anna, she's no exception.  She's 5, soon to be 6.  She's starting public school and I would by lying if said I wasn't scared out of my mind.  Her ARD meeting to develop her IEP is this Friday.  I'm pretty sure I already know how things will end up.  She will be riding the bus to another campus for PPCD.  She will do a little kindergarten for the social time but then when they begin working on academics she will switch over to PPCD.  I would be lying if I said I'm ok with it.  I mean, I am ok with it in the respect that I think it is the appropriate placement for her.  But in the whole reality scheme of things I am totally not ok with it.  I swear I come so far with acceptance and then it's like I have to start all over.  I get mad because things didn't have to be this way but more mad about how we were treated after the fact.  I have thoughts that I hope every time that particular Dr sees a kid with developmental problems that he has to think of my kid and the coldness with which he said "shit happens."  I hope that he never again acts so flippantly about the quality of someone else's life.  For a long time I reconciled that things were ok with Anna and would be ok with her because her "noodle" was completely intact.  Don't misunderstand me- things are ok in the sense that we will make it and things could be so much worse.  But what I'm struggling with accepting is that while she is smart and witty her "noodle" is not totally intact and she will struggle from here on out because of that.  No, I cannot tell the future but I'm not an idiot.  When your kid is 5 1/2 and knows 2-3 letters and can only count to 4 it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see things are not exactly on track.  So that's where I struggle right now.  I allowed myself to live in the fake world where she would have a weird gait and strange speech but that would be all we were dealing with.  Now reality is setting in, again, and it hurts.  Instead of going to meet the teacher night full of joy I am sad that a short yellow bus will pull up to my house every morning and pick up my child to take her to a school that is not where she should go.  I am sad that I will have to go teach the teachers and aides how to bolus feed her and when to medicate her and what things to watch for.  I know they have done it all a million times...but not with my child.  I am not sad because I have Anna.  Make no mistake.  I am just sad that our reality is not what I had made myself believe it would be.  I will adjust and of course Anna will adjust.  She always does and then I'm left feeling like an idiot for ever being sad in the first place.  Again, this kid teaches me lessons every single day and I know this will be no different.  But for now, she is growing up too and I am scared.