So, I guess I haven't mentioned that I'm having some evaluations done for AJ.  Yeah.  Last year when we did end-of-the-year evaluations he was a year behind in reading, so I took him to the pediatrician's office to have him evaluated for ADHD.  The Physician's Assistant who evaluated him did diagnose him with ADHD, but also detected some auditory processing problems.  Basically this means that even though his ears hear things, the signal to the brain gets lost somewhere or read wrong, and his brain doesn't "hear" correctly, or that his brain doesn't store sound-related things in a way that it can pull them back out when he needs them.  Although he is learning and progressing, his reading suffers some from this.  The P.A. gave me a list of things to do, so I've spent the last months filling out endless paperwork, and now I am having him processed through the public school system to have a Psychoeducational Evaluation done.  Today I had an interview with a social worker to put together a social history (basically what has life been like for him growing up, and what is he like).

It has been hard to make these decisions.  I cannot afford to go the route of having all private processing done.  He is progressing, but I don't want to ignore probelms until they are more severe.  In all our homeschooling "training" we are told to "avoid the state" so as not to give them a foothold or precedent in our homeschool program.  I called HSLDA, and talked to friends.  Finally I decided two things.  First, here in our county I have no reason to be fearful of the school board.  It has been very friendly and supportive to homeschooling, and I decided that being super-cautious was a bridge I didn't need to cross until I saw evidence that it was needed.  Second, because the boys' dad is opposed to me homeschooling, I decided that it might be worth it to have an interview with a social worker "on the books" in case he ever tried to make some outrageous claims of abuse or neglect.  Still, when I went today, I was a little nervous about putting myself and our home environment out there in front of a stranger for examination.  To complicate things, we overslept (about an hour and a half), and then I couldn't find my car keys, only to finally find them safely locked in the car.  What a great mom I am.

True to form, my Knight in Shining Armor (Jesus), sent help, and a friend at co-op got my message, came to pick the kids and I up, took me to my appointment, and then picked up the kids and me.  Cool.  The interview?  It went great.  I felt very comfortable with the social worker, made myself share very openly, didn't bad-mouth their dad (not something I do anyway), but was honest about where there are problems on both his part and mine.  By causing me to work through all of this history and experience wtih the social worker, my Knight in Shining Armor showed me something else.  I'm a good mom.  I am.  I'm NOT perfect, and yes, I'm making plenty of mistakes. I worry that I'm too ADHD to help my boys who are also ADHD.  I worry that I'm "depriving" them of help and experiences that would benefit them.  I worry that I'm just not good enough at what I'm doing, but the boys are doing well and I'm doing a good job.  Plenty of people tell me this, but I often find myself wondering if their love of me has clouded their view, or if they are just biased.  But today I had a stranger who sees all extremes of parenting tell me several times that I'm doing great things with them.  And she wasn't even counting the spiritual things which my Knight has called me to do!  Anyway, it's not that I should need that kind of affirmation, but sometimes I do, and today it was very encouraging.

Best of all, she said that it sounds like AJ is only mildly affected by whatever struggles he has, and she affirmed some of the decisions I have made as being right on target, so I'm feeling good about it all.  Oh, and I did get my keys our of the car minutes ago.  It definitely pays to have good insurance!