The Waiting Room...it can be anywhere.
We arrive, sign in and wait. I watch another mother with two children enter. The speech therapist comes out and takes her older boy in for his time to play and practice better speech...her youngest wants to go too, "your turn is later in the week," she says. She leaves to play with the younger child. There is the other mother waiting with me in the room. She is quiet, looking stressed, just like I am feeling. Margo's occupational therapist arrives, and says, "OK Margo, its time to go play". I send her off with an encouraging, "work hard have fun dear." Now it is silent. Two moms are sitting in the waiting room. I am one of them, the other is new.
Our eyes meet for a moment, a knowing smile is shared between us and I say something stupid..."I am here for the long haul." With those simple words we start to talk about our long hauls. The diagnosis for our children is different, most of the symptoms are very different too, yet there is similarity in their treatments and in our concerns. I told the other mom how I was encouraged by the physical therapist when Margo was two and a half. She kept telling me how Margo's brain was still so plastic at such an early age. It meant her brain could develop new neural pathways for actions. We both laughed at that use of word, 'plastic' to describe our little ones' brains. Margo and I have been involved with physical therapy and now occupational therapy for over three years, more than half of her life to date. And we come to this simple waiting room, so full of hope and fears. At least this mom and I do, actually all the moms do.
At last my new friend tells me her name, Kate, and then she adds "You're right, it is a very long haul." Her son is recently diagnosed as a high functioning autistic child. Mine is diagnosed with overall
We continue to talk. Kate says, "He does not play with his older sister at all, they are three years apart, it is hard to know if it is the autism or normal for that age." I pop up with the simple, "It could be they really have nothing to play with that both are interested in." She laughs and acknowledges that just might be the case. We both laugh, because we know in some instances we both over analyze the situation, sometimes they do what they do because they are tired, or just three or simply 5 years old. Other times we both wonder; are we providing the correct treatment, to help our children grow? No one really knows for sure. We both want full lives for our children...and in the midst of it; we are learning to embrace what that might look like. Neither one of us wants it to be the life described by our diagnosticians...For Margo it has been described as a child controlling every movement of her environment, planning out-loud the climbs we just do naturally. The grasping for control moves into the area of social skills and relationships...everything thoroughly planned. When this was first explained to me, I just got tired thinking about it. It shows up in her ability to hold a pencil and form her letters with fatigue. Margo had to be taught by the physical therapist how to sit up from a crawling position, and then later how to sit in a kneeling one knee down, one knee bent position. And yes when my daughter was 3, and she happened to trip on the parking lot, with the physical therapist watching, she then had to learn how to fall. Yes, Margo was drilled through play how to extend her arms and keep her head lifted up if she would unexpectedly fall to the ground with a trip. She was taught, and I still work with her on this regarding the art of climbing stairs. She loves to ride escalators, but still requests my hand as a steadying guide when others two years younger go up and down without the help of their mom. She has been coached in skipping and every time she starts the move it takes her about ten to twenty feet to pull it all together and actually recognize the movement as skipping. Otherwise I would describe it as a very leggy fawn just learning to walk and jump around just after its birth. She loves to skip, she loves to hop...and each of these movements has been garnered with literally hours of practice and re-teaching of each movement so that one day they all will become natural. I was warned to look for flaws in her ability to organize numbers and math concepts, the possibility of dyslexia and poor reading skills. Initially her language skills were delayed, because it took so much work to move her body. Currently she is quite the talker, and has found it to be the gift of distraction when she does not want to do a difficult physical movement. To date we have avoided such issues, but then she is still only in kindergarten, so I watch and observe these other areas of growth. Most of her symptoms only affect the area of play and movement, which for a kindergartner can be a significant portion of their day. And yes, she does get extremely emotional from time to time. I have been working with her to learn to process her emotions and anxiety about doing something right. We practice with 'adventures', so she can learn flexibility, for that will not come naturally to her either.
So I visit our waiting rooms regularly. For me that is almost 5 days a week outside of school. I take Margo to swimming twice a week. There her coach asks her to swim a certain stroke, and Margo is convinced she is complying with the direction. He at first says something like, stop fooling around, and then realizes that Margo is very serious about the stroke at hand. We talk after class and I explain her learning difficulties, and he realizes his mistake in assuming her 'playing around'. We decide to move her to another class. But not until after I discuss this with the director and end up bursting into tears. Margo does not see me cry, because she is with her daddy. But everything the director says about how close Margo is to putting it all together, just reminds me this seems impossible, these are the issues with which she always struggles; again I am hit full face with her physical coordination issues. I didn't mean to cry in this very public waiting room. It just happened.
Thursdays, the waiting room is in my home. Margo has a personal trainer. He is to be certified in Functional Training. It is a friend of ours who has offered to work with her one day a week. His focus is in developing strength through play. He is graciously doing this as a gift to us. And she laughs so much, and has so much fun, even when she is doing a side plank of sorts. I can't make her do the "exercises", but he has her doing bridges, playing catch and even doing the dreaded squats without a complaint.
My next waiting room is gymnastics. Once more Margo has a new coach. There are three little girls in the class, all of the same age, and seemingly great disparities in ability. Margo tries everything, her body contorting in strange ways to try and do that push-up, or balance on the raised balance beam. Ah this coach is helping her out, encouraging her to keep trying. After three repeats of the same movement, I can see some improvement and I am wowed by her abilities. It does not come close to matching the abilities of the other two girls, but this waiting room with a view is both encouraging and heart wrenching. The coach comes out, and then I tell her a little about Margo's struggles etc....and dam, I start to tear up again. The coach says she understands and has kids too; this is the best place for Margo to learn to move her body.
I actually look forward to meeting with Kate again in the first waiting room…because she shares my heart’s struggle for her own son. Our eyes are not shut when it comes to the future for our children, we do not want to expect less just to protect ourselves from disappointment. I want to use these waiting rooms to learn the reality of the now in Margo’s life and the possibility of her future. I tell my friend Linsey, it is not enough that she can read and write and do arithmetic, I want her to enjoy moving and hiking, climbing boulders and playing with her friends…and so, I go back to the waiting room.
This is an original Silicon Valley Moms Blog post. Maxine can be found playing with Margo and writing at her blog, stories with little margo.
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