The past week has been crazy - in a nutshell I learned of a spot at an amazing special needs preschool and have spent the past week trying to figure out if we can get Emmett in there. One of the pre-requisites was an official assessment to send to Alberta Learning so that Em could get funding to attend. We had that assessment today.
The good news is that the speech pathologist seemed pretty positive that he would qualify for funding. He's pretty much already been accepted to the school and the vice principal is just trying to get all the ducks in a row to make it official, but that was still nice to hear. Actually, I think the reason she told me he could just start attending right away is after meeting him for less than 10 minutes she could tell he would qualify.
Emmett's speech delay has been classified as severe. She didn't give me an approximate age level that he's at, but I'd guess about a 2 year old level (he'll be 4 next month). She said "I know that's hard to hear", and I was very professional about it all and tried to focus on the positive (now he can get the specific help he needs to grow). I won't lie though, inside I'm really struggling. I know this is just the beginning and things can only get better from here, but it's still scary and overwhelming. I question my ability to help him reach his full potential.
Next week is going to be very difficult - ever since his 3 day stay at Hitler's Preschool for Young Nazis, Em's anxiety goes right through the roof whenever he's in a school type setting. Heck, he was practically hyperventilating at library storytime. My family has been great about agreeing to watch Seth so that I can stay with Em at school for as long as he needs me there, but it's still going to be hard. At least there are a TON of cool things to do at school, which should help win him over...the question is how long that will take.
To whomever is reading this...if you pray, please include Emmett in your prayers. We're praying that he will feel safe at school and learn to trust the teacher and aides. I'll post an update this time next week about how his first few days went.
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