Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Graduating from TAP

Tallie graduated from her TAP class last week and I am so proud of her! I will miss taking her. I feel like she got so much out of the class and so did I. I didn’t realize how much I relied on going every week until it was over. I gained so much knowledge and had someone right there to answer my questions. Not only that, but I was essentially going to a support group twice a week. Sitting with all the other moms and talking about our kids helped so much! I will really miss all of them. I have become extremely close to a few of the moms however and I know we will stay in touch and hopefully still have playdates together every once in awhile.
Although I am very excited for Tallie to start the next chapter in her life, I have been left worried that we are missing something. I keep wondering if there is more that we should be doing for Tallie. We did recently start her on Probiotics twice a day which is supposed to help her digestive system and yeast overgrowth. I really do feel that this has helped. Without getting too graphic, her stools are a lot more normal now and the constant diaper rash she seemed to have has drastically decreased. There were a few days I forgot to give it to her and the diaper rash showed up right away. So I am happy with the results of the probiotics, however I have been wondering if we should be giving her more therapy in addition to going to a special education preschool class.
Right when I was really starting to lose my mind over this I got an email from Tallie’s old Speech Therapist that used to come out to our house every week. Let me just say how lucky I am to have her in our lives! Here are a few inserts from our email conversations:

Subject: Thinking of you
To: Karen

I thought of you sending Tallie to preschool next Th. I hope you feel good about Tallie being in school. She has a phenomenal teacher and staff who will work with her..She is going to make even more progress than she has been-that's exciting! I miss you guys. Keep me posted on how things go and know that Tallie and all of you are one of those families I will always have a special place for in my heart .

Karen Sachs wrote:

So great to hear from you! We miss you too! I feel like I am on a bit of an emotional rollercoaster right now. I am excited for Tallie to start school and I know that it will be so great for her but I am also sad. I feel a little bit robbed of having time alone with her while Morgan's at school. I'm also feeling anxious and unsure that I am doing everything I need to be doing. I feel like I am missing something. I keep wondering about if I should look into a special diet, if I should get her tested for high mercury and yeast levels. I've thought about additional therapy, just all kinds of stuff. I've seen such great progress with Tallie, but her language is not where I thought it would be at this point and she seems to be having more melt downs lately especially in public. It's probably just this in between time from TAP to preschool that's got me all worked up so I'm trying to keep that in mind. We do go meet with her teacher tomorrow for a conference so I bet that will answer a lot of my questions. We went and visited the classroom and met Faith last week and it seemed great. I was really impressed with the school and liked that they had a lot of similar things that TAP has. I guess my concerns are that this class is not specifically for children with Autism, so I think that's what's leaving me worried that we should be doing something else in addition to this.
Sorry to write you a novel! I guess you can say you wrote me at a good time and I kind of needed someone to talk to about this! :)
Thank you so much for writing and I'll make sure to send you some first day at school pics of Tallie!

Subject: Thinking of you
To: Karen

You may voice your worries/concerns to me ANYTIME!!! Know this-you are a great mom and follow your gut with Tallie. I think you are right about why you are so emotional now. I totally get the "feeling robbed" part. Do remember that now Tallie will be with kids who have stronger communication skills - especially the peer models. I feel it's a great opportunity for Tallie to be with a wider variety of peers. At TAP all she had to model from were other kids on the spectrum. It's a great program but I really think you will appreciate Tallie having a more "typical" preschool experience. You are doing so much for Tallie now by following through with things at home and most of all by loving Tallie for who she is. I look forward to any pictures you take of her first day and again, stay in touch and you can even call if you ever need to talk.

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