She's doing just fine!

Back in May D.R. and I started to have some concerns about Tia. Not only was she still struggling with some speech sounds, but her anxiety had escalated to an all time high. I can't call it stranger anxiety, because it wasn't just with strangers. She would cry and retreat into her shell even with family and friends. Over the summer, she freaked out uncontrollably at the sight of my brother in law, whom she knows very well.

We had finally decided to have her evaluated. We consulted our pediatrician who said he would support our decision to have her checked out because he thought she would have grown out of some of her behaviors by this age. The school district in our area does their evaluations in August. We had to deal with her anxiety all summer. For me, since I'm the one home with her all day, things were getting pretty rough.

Two weeks ago we got the letter in the mail stating the school had an appointment for her. At this point she had already started preschool at a private Christian school. We agreed that if she qualified for support services within the district program, we would just have to pull her out of the private school. Lo and behold, about a week before the appointment, Tia just came right out of her shell. She would talk to people, no longer cried at the sight of strangers, and started pronouncing the 'L' sound that she had been struggling with for so long. How can this be?! It was like over night, she became a different kid. I kept the appointment anyway and figured if she didn't need their services, they could tell me so themselves.

Today I got another letter in the mail stating that the psychologist and teacher who evaluated Tia feel that she is developing right on schedule. They saw no problems at all. She performed on an age appropriate level for all categories. YAY TIA!

We are so relieved. At first I really wanted her to qualify for services so she could go to the wonderful district preschool, which is a 5 day program. Then when I saw how much she loved the private preschool, I decided it would be really hard to pull her out. More change for an already anxious kid wouldn't be my first choice.

Here's what we've learned along the way. Tia needs routine, a schedule, and as much predictability as possible. She doesn't deal well with chaos. When her anxiety peaked just happens to be the same time we were going back and forth to NY to see my ailing Mom. As much as she loves to be in NY, visiting our family, it was tough on her. She was more often than not away from her regular routine, her own bed, and her home. That takes a toll on adults, I can only imagine what it was doing to her. We're pretty sure that's where a lot of her issues were coming from. Hindsight is 20/20!

We are so happy that our sweet little angel is doing just fine. We've learned a lot from this experience, most importantly we learned that we will always do what's best for our children.