Therapy, As An Extreme Sport

Some parents overload their kids' schedules with football, soccer, softball, basketball, karate, gymnastics, dance, hockey and whatever else their children come home begging to partake in. But not me. Nope, Reiss has never begged to be in any of those things and other than the occasional passing by the tv and noticing Daddy is watching "Colts guys" - which consist of any football players, doesn't matter whether it's college, NFL, or a fictional movie like Rudy - I would venture to say he is not even aware of the existence of many types of sports.

Oh sure, we play outside quite often. We throw balls around. We get the hose out and these monkeys play and I get soaked and slightly irritated. James and I take Reiss and Milla out to the swingset and sandbox to play around for awhile. We ride our bikes. Or, more precisely, James and I ride our bikes and Reiss and Milla ride in the bike trailer. Reiss does ride his bike with training wheels but his bodily movements (kinetics, kinesthetics, neither of those are the right word. Where is the right word when I need it???) need some work and his pedalling is not fluid in motion. In summertime, quite frankly, I think Reiss could easily be persuaded into living outside if I lost all my marbles and thought it was a good idea as well. That, however, is not the case. I still have a few marbles rolling around up there and furthermore, I have no plans of chucking the house for a nest or den in the backyard woods.

Ramble, ramble, ramble....point being this: Organized sports are not something Reiss participates in at this time. Milla, well, she is definitely too young for that sort of thing just yet.

So instead of sports, we have therapies - my new pastime. Well, actually, my part in all of it is doing the research, finding the resources and professionals to carry out the therapies, waiting around (when the therapies take place in an office setting) while the therapies are being performed, and a whole lot of praying that all of it is going to result in some real and visible changes.

If my kids' therapy schedules were to be laid out in a format similar to an event program at a sporting event, it might look something like this:

Reiss:
Developmental Preschool (Preschool through the local school system for children with learning challenges)
Miss Emily, The Toy Doctor (Private Occupational Therapy)
Talking Doctor (Private Speech Therapy)
and coming soon....Applied Behavior Analysis, the in-home program version

Milla:
Miss Laura's Visit (In-home Speech Therapy through Early Intervention)
Miss Emily and Her Swing (Occupational Therapy)
Jill and Her Toybox (In-home Developmental Therapy through Early Intervention)
Miss Ashley and Her Potato Head Couple (Private Speech Therapy)

I never wanted to be a soccer mom. My friends with older children always told me to never let my children play baseball or softball because the innings are so long with children who have no skills playing and it makes the game last all day. No mother wants to be this kind of mother: the Therapy Mom.

But that is exactly what I have become.

The silver lining to this storm-sized cloud though, is that I have already seen improvements in both children in just the two short weeks from when we began with Reiss only being in preschool and Milla only receiving in-home speech therapy. Reiss actually wants to go to the "toy doctor." Milla is using "I" phrases more in place of her usual "me" demands. They are both gaining exposure to adults outside of their usual regimen of Daddy, Mommy, teachers, and occasional grandparent visits.

Now, If I could just get more of their appointments in sync with one another, I could possibly become that mom I have wanted to become for a very long time: The Bookworm Mom. Oh, how I miss reading. Reading, that is, during daylight hours and not at three in the morning because I am awake worrying about all I didn't get done the day before or all that needs to be done in a few short hours or wondering if today will be the day that Reiss goes poop on the potty again and not in his pants or how I could have handled things the day before when tempers started tantrum-ing or hoping to find peace in the hours that will follow when one or both children are not behaving in a most desirable way or......or......or.................blah, blah, blah.

In my case, perhaps the title of "Therapy Mom" should also mean some of it for myself as well.