Reassessment

* Beat post ahead. Please consider this your warning. As always, if you are not in a place where you can read stuff like this, please skip it. Protecting yourself must come first. There will be other posts. 

In the meantime, here's a photo of Jaxson. Sometimes kitty love heals all.

Four month ago, the Beats and I attended an intake appointment to address She-Beat's gross motor delay. During the appointment, as I talked with her case worker, She-Beat's physical therapist got on the floor with her and watched her play with a series of toys. The main concern at the time was that she was barely moving from her center of gravity, being very content instead to play with anything solely within her reach. During that appointment we generated a series of goals for She-Beat. We talked about revisiting all these goals in the new year, reassessing what was met and what remained.

Yesterday, during She-Beat's PT session, she took her first two steps unsupported. I literally had my back turned focusing on her brother when it happened. Still, she did it. Surprised when she got the response for this accomplishment. As the session went on, the physical therapist marveled at how far she's come in such a short period of time.

As our session drew to a close, She-Beat's PT sat down with me and asked me about reassessment. At this point she's met all of her goals. The question is now whether there is anything else that needs to be addressed. If not, we start transitioning out of PT.

On one hand, I'm beyond happy to get this news. Just shy of 16 months, She-Beat is caught up with her peers for gross motor. There's really no other red flags at this point, but the assessment will help us identify anything that may be looming and develop a plan of action to help her overcome those.

On the other, though, I'm terrified. Though I struggled a lot with She-Beat's delay, the truth is that I've come to rely a lot on this group with helping me with both Beats. We've had many discussions about not only motor skills, but also communication, cognitive and even emotional development. To have experts in these areas right at my fingertips (literally an email away) has been a comfort. What "graduating" would mean is that this easy access disappears. Sure, these resources are still there, but it would be different.

Today I scheduled She-Beat's reassessment, which will be next Tuesday. Poor kid is teething molars at the moment, so we're hoping that she's not too miserable for this. Still, like with any test, there's an air of nervous anticipation. Hope for good news; fear of the unknown.