Speaking Patiently

Our doctors office called today.  They wanted me to know that they had called our Health Insurer as was requested for the "peer to peer" review.  Tufts has indicated that they will again deny Lissa speech services because they feel this is the purview of the public schools.  All in unison now people let's scream "argh!"   To his credit, my Dr reminded them that we homeschool (though I know in my state I am still entitled to special ed services.)  However, it still does not make sense to me.  First of all, given my daughters age, she would not be kindergarten eligible till next year.  That is one delay.  The second is that the school system will want to do their own testing. Which will have its own, fairly slow time frame if my experiences for Chet are anything to go by.  HR at my job may be able to help once we get the paperwork.  I am hoping so.  We also have some flash cards that the speech pathologist was going to use with Lissa.  We will begin to use them here at home and I am going to do some internet research now.  I need to come up with a bunch of concrete "th" words for her.  Thumb for instance can have a good graphic with it to cue her. Likewise thin and thirsty.  I am going to make this a fun part of her schooling and see what evolves while we jump through the various beauocratic hoops that await us. 

Lissa loves to do schoolwork so I don't see this as being something she will resist.  We can play with mirrors making sure our mouths are making the right position to do the "th". (she presently does it incorrectly and it results in the "f" sound.)

In an odd reminder of patience and communication, the kids and I were shopping today for gifts for the upcoming final (can you hear me cheering at the word final) Yule celebration this coming weekend.  We were in a sporting goods store and Lissa fell in love with a pair of shoes.  By some miracle, they actually fit--she has very hard to fit feet so this is pretty cool.  Her feet had grown so the purchase was reasonable. 

The young man that I asked to measure her feet did so and then he proceeded to tell me her size.  "A th-th-th th . . . long pause. . . thirteen but right on the edge of thirteen and a half."  I waited patiently while he spoke and then thanked him and got the correct sized shoes for her to try. 

When we finished shopping, we got to the front of the store.  One register open and a looooong line.  Not a  joyful view for a mom with 2 littles who are totally done with the experience and a slightly bored teen and an autistic elder son.  When I suddenl y  heard a voice say "I am opening over here."  I looked up and the young man who helped us with the shoes was now opening a register and we were his first customers through the line. Hi speech issue was both more severe than Lissa's and more sporadic.  For the first part of the transaction, it was significant--for the second, almost nonexistant.

I told him how excited I was that my daughter had found shoes that fit so well and thanked him again for his help.  His "you're welcome," was clear as a bell.