Lee's New Normal

We are counting down the remaining days of the 2010-2011 school year.  Nobody in our household is  graduating or promoting this year, so it's refreshingly low key.

Lee will be finishing Kindergarten, so that's a big deal, but still very chill.  This will be his second time completing Kindergarten.  Last year the poor little guy had to enter Kinder as a 4 year-old who didn't even turn 5 until December.  His birthday is the day after the cut-off, so he was literally the youngest kid in class.

He received speech and language therapy in pre-school, and it was the policy of the district we were in at the time that if I opted to hold him back, he wouldn't qualify for speech and language therapy the entire year I had him out of school.  It was either hold him back, and then start Kindergarten the next fall when he was 5 and more mature, or put him in as a 4 year-old and have him be the youngest kid in the class, but yet he'd receive the therapy he needed.  I decided to have him go ahead and go, so that he could continue to get help.  He did surprisingly well for his age academically, but he was still young, so we decided to have him repeat it again this year for a better foundation.

Lee has had speech and language therapy since he was 2 1/2.  He has a lateral "S," which means he slurs his "S" sound to where the air escapes the sides of his tongue.  Some therapists have wondered whether this was the result of seizures he had as an infant, but his neurologists have yet to attribute seizure activity to the low muscle tone in his mouth.

At the time of Lee's pre-school years, I was a single mom, and completely overwhelmed with the needs of my children.  Each of them had a list of needs that were critical and demanding of my attention, and each list was longer than my ability to accept and/or attend.  I hit what I could, when I could.  Things like fighting for Lee's right to speech and language therapy, without having to endure the stress of being put into a setting ahead of his emotional level, was beyond my reach and level of energy.  I accepted the district rule, and hoped Lee would benefit from both the therapy, as well as the academic setting...knowing full well that he'd end up repeating the year.

But as last year continued, it became clear that Lee's Kindergarten environment was anything but ideal.  He had a hard time focusing...almost as though he didn't have a will to even try.  The teacher would comment about this but would always be quick to say that Lee was a nice little boy.  I did what I could at home with him, making sure his homework was done, and making sure he was read to by a sibling or by me, but I could only go so far with him, getting home late from work, only to have to get him to bed so that we could start it all over the next day.  As the year continued, the teacher's patience with him lessened.  He had kids in his class that noticed her blatant and critical demeanor toward Lee.  It was her last year of teaching before retiring, and she was tired...add to that fact that there were several kids in the class with disciplinary problems due to crisis within their own  homes.  Still, she was critical of Lee, and he sensed it.

After the school year ended, we bought a house in a community with an easier commute for Hugo.  He works in Glendale, and we bought a house in Glendora, a community far removed from the school district we had been in.  The kids were put into excellent schools--something Hugo painstakingly researched before we made an offer on a house.

On the first day of school this year, I knew that Lee was in the right place, at the right time.  He has had the best teacher he could have been given.  He has thrived, and so have I.  Rather than working 6-7 days a week as I had done as a single mom from the time Lee was 2 until he was 5, I was home full-time, with the freedom of volunteering in his classroom regularly.  I got to know his school mates, and their families, and deep friendships have developed.

But even though our circumstances have improved incredibly, and Lee is experiencing stability for the first time in his life, it has been hard for him to "get" what is normal.  To him, normal is living in a different house every year.  We have only been in our house since September, and in these 8 months, Lee hasn't grasped the fact that we are in this house for good.  For the first few months, he would ask me where our new house would be, or he would say that he loves his house now, and that he'd miss it when we move.

Last week, we were talking about this school year being just about over, and he asked me where he was going to go to school in the 1st grade.  I told him that he will go to the same school where he is now, and that he would be there until he is all done with the 6th grade.  I told him again that Papi and Mommy bought this house, and that means we will be living here for a long time.

It's just the more subtle and not-so-subtle reminders that the chaos of our life for the majority of his young years has been far reaching, and although we have made all the giant leaps in the right direction, it still takes time for all of the positives to work their way in and through the painful and ugly years.  But try we will.  We won't lose heart, or give up.  The stresses and challenges of our life up to this point will strengthen us in time, as we allow God to do His thing with it all.

Today, as I volunteered in Lee's class, I took individual pictures of each of the 26 Kindergartners wearing a red graduation cap and gown.  They were precious.  It was another milestone, and an ending of something significant in Lee's little life.  Happily, though, I know that it's just the beginning of many more positively significant things yet to come.

How cool is that.