adjusting expectations

Before we brought Logan home, if you had asked us, we would have told you we were prepared for a child with delays. We would have said that our expectations were in line with what we were pretty sure we'd find; that we knew what we were getting in to. After all, we did the required adoption education (very good!) and we have tons of experience with preschoolers. Even developmentally delayed ones. Heavens, I spent two weeks volunteering in an orphanage helping with developmental assessments and training the staff in setting up a developmental preschool! We weren't walking in to this blind.

Because we "knew" what we were doing, I am sometimes surprised by how off we were in what we thought we could expect. Each child is unique, and development is anything but uniform, I understand, but Logan's development blows my mind. In some areas, developmentally he's not quite 2 yet, in others he's much closer to 3 1/2. Sometimes it varies day to day or even hour to hour. It became quite clear late last week. We got a game that we could all play together. Ryan loves it and plays competitively no matter who he's playing against. Logan simply can't pull together enough coordination to even get started. He's frustrated, and it takes some of the fun out of our family game. Truly, we thought he'd be able to do more than he is capable of right now. I'm not sure why it surprised us--we watch him every day. There are so many things that seem to be beyond his reach. But they'll come...

We know Logan has some vestibular (sense of gravity/motion) and proprioceptive (where his body is in space) issues. We're seeing some motor planning issues--the inability to remember the what and how of a motion or movement. The motor planning issues are now apparent in his speech as well, since he's struggling to get his face/lip/tongue muscles to do what they need to do to speak. He still walks in to walls, even though we know he sees them. He can't judge distance well, a proprioceptive issue. He spends an inordinate amount of time planning how to jump or swing or run, almost like he's forgotten. We show him nearly every day how to hold a pair of scissors; in fact, we correct his hold multiple times every time we have scissors out. Walking down the street can be a challenge. Today, for example, we went to the park. It's about a 3 block walk, almost totally flat, with sidewalks all the way. Before we got 3 houses from home, Logan had fallen 4 times. He stumbled about every 50 steps the rest of the way, and his path is like the flight of a bumblebee. Walking behind him is hard! I never know where he's going to be next--neither does he!--and so I try to stay about a dozen steps behind. But the farther I stay behind, the slower and more unpredictably he walks. It's an adventure! However, the same child who can hardly get himself to the park has no problems with the equipment there! He climbs ladders, slides down slides, swings, tries hard to do the monkey bars, tackles chain ladders, fire poles, and climbing walls successfully, and is basically as coordinated as any other nearly 4 year old out there. So what gives???

He didn't qualify for physical therapy or occupational therapy, so we're doing our best. Some days it feels nearly impossible. I know it will get better, and it sure doesn't affect his sweet spirit! Gymnastics is on the horizon for fall, and our wonderful speech therapist is going to have an OT sit in on a session for a consultation. In the meantime, we work hard to readjust our expectations so they're not too difficult yet still provide some challenge. We have laughed about the fact that while we shouldn't limit our children, perhaps professional athlete and neurosurgeon weren't professions that we should encourage Logan to pursue.