Things that quietly go right

I was looking back through some old posts and noticed that in November I was worried about Barak's Hebrew reading. Last week, he read all of Fantastic Mr. Fox, by himself, unprompted, in Hebrew. And understood it.

Also, Barak got his report card today. It was pretty great. Except for the fact that he almost never does his homework. Aleph for behavior across the board; almost good, good, or very good for everything except for gym. He's not that coordinated, it seems. (Nor are any of the rest of us.)

Iyyar's playdate went fine. Great, maybe? He had a great time. As I was trying to get him out the door, I started talking to his friend's mom and he and his friend ran back off to his room to play some more. A Very Good Sign. He keeps asking me when he can play with Yoeli again.

It's been a good week with Iyyar. Another star chart, this time with the very extravagant prize of Bone #8 (a full-priced NIS 76 graphic novel) at the end. Yes, he starts singing at the table or talking to himself or waving his arms a lot, especially at the end of the day when he's tired. But when I tell him to stop, he does. He talks to me. He makes sense, most of the time. No his thoughts are not that organized, yes he jumps around a lot, but it's not so far off normal. And we talk a lot about why he needs to stop with the talking to himself and the silly faces. Because the other kids don't realize that he's telling himself stories, and they think it's scary, and if they're scared they won't want to play with him. He gets this. He understands that he needs to stop. He's trying. It's really a step in the right direction.

I brought him to a private OT evaluation today. The OT was recommended by a number of people, although I wasn't terribly impressed personally--she seemed to be in a huge rush, she manhandled him in a way I would have hated (although he seemed OK with it), she talked to me about him as though he didn't understand (until I pulled her aside and said Don't Do That, and she stopped.) On the way out she handed me a copy of the Sensory Profile, in Hebrew. She said she didn't have it in English. I looked at it at home and realized there was no way I could do it in Hebrew, so called her and asked how to get it in English (since it was obviously a translation of a standardized English rating scale). She said, I'll fax it to you. Apparently she has only one copy, which she hadn't wanted to give me, and hadn't copied ahead of time even though... whatever. Like I said, not hugely impressed, and I have a second (also private) OT eval scheduled with an American OT who specializes in sensory issues, in two weeks. On my due date. This will... work out somehow.

38 weeks today. Avtalyon's fourth birthday is Shabbos. Oh, and his gan birthday party was yesterday. It was fun. He had fun, I had fun, I took some cute pictures. It was a monthly birthday party for all the kids with birthdays that month (him, Liel, and Ro'i, of course) and each mother brought a cake so each kid could have their own cake. My cake? Whole wheat with no dairy, soy, or trans fats. Ro'i's cake? Bakery evildom with Smurfs spray-painted on top. Guess which cake every single kid wnated? Guess which cake came home missing only two pieces? Oh well--we enjoyed the leftovers.

Further to Avtalyon: he drew a lion today that was so good I initially thought Barak had done it. Then maybe Iyyar. Then Avtalyon piped up, "It was me!" I remember exactly when Barak drew his first not-scribbled thing, and it was a sea wolf the summer we were in Israel (aged four and a quarter). Avtalyon is drawing really, really well for his age. Also, I noticed in a drawing he did the other day at gan that he wrote, not in order and with an inverted Z, the word "ZOOM." He did it at gan so wasn't copying. I'm pretty impressed. Also, after a couple of weeks of me consciously making time to sit with him, read with him, ask him questions and not let Iyyar or Barak answer them, his English has picked up noticeably. I'm really not worried about his English now, but am still going to do the English speech eval just to a) have the information and b) get the insights of the really amazing speech therapist I took Iyyar to last week.

Further to whom--I feel like she was the first person who's really had good insight on what's going on with him. She does think he has some ADD but doesn't think it's his primary issue. She thinks he might have some sensory stuff, but also doesn't think that's the bulk of the problem. Mostly, she thinks it's emotional, and I think she's right. I don't know exactly how it started, but there are lots of things we can do to help and we're doing a lot of them already. So... yeah. Progress.

OK. Speaking of progress, there are speeches to be written.

Stay tuned, as always, to this exciting channel. Also, if you're reading, comments are nice. I'm much more likely to post if I don't feel like I'm posting into the ether.