And. . . she's in!

Other than that the tester couldn't understand her, Starshine had taken over the test. After several silly questions that wouldn't stop, and a book that was many pages thick, my pre-school aged daughter took a deep breath, smiled and turned her book to the tester. "Show me orange!" she told her.

"Where is his elbow?"

The problem was. . . while I knew what she was saying, the Ph.D. with the speech degree was clueless, but very much amused. The purpose of my daughter being there was not to have her IQ tested, but to speak enough to be evaluated. They soon formed a detente where each one asked one and the test was soon over.

~~~

I am sad-- Starshine is going to pre-school soon. My last, 9 of 9, qualifies for special needs pre-school because of her speech. On one hand, I am thrilled because she has so badly been needing the interaction with other children, but on the other hand, I will miss her. We'd planned to send her to a yuppie-style children's play group once my other kids got settled, one that would do music or perhaps art. Thanks to the fire, we are having to take her to the public school, which is fine, but I'd wanted to indulge in this little treat for her, but really for my ego. You don't dream about having children and sending them to a public school special needs class. You imagine yourself going for lattes with other mommies for an hour or two while the children interact, then you imagine going back and hearing how well behaved your perfect child was.

Starshine won't care and this lasts longer and she will probably be more fun and I will have time to actually accomplish something creative with my 8-16 extra hours per week on my hands. Her school is close by and they have a huge playground.

As they grow older and move on, so must the mommies and daddies. With my eldest daughter, I was 25 when she was in kindergarten. I will be 42 when Starshine is in kindergarten. Children age their parents.

It's always nice to see the testers. I have known them for almost 12 years, they having met my eldest son when he was only a few months old. They said he had speech impairments and I was like, "You cannot tell this at 6 months!" As time went on, his problems became more pronounced. I got him help because I liked the teachers, but I really thought they were just looking for an easy case! (I was so delusional!) It was when Guy was 5 that his younger brother, Basil, showed up as average to advanced even in my eyes that it sunk in just how bad off Guy was. Guy is in junior high and still has delays.

They don't expect Starshine to have long lasting delays with her speech. The hope is to get her caught up by kindergarten, but sometimes they get worse as the kids develop. I will miss Starshine during the day when she is away at school, but I fully expect her to be herself and get into mischief when she is at home, just as her siblings manage to do! With her, I am happy for her to be going to pre-school, and I may go for lattes with the other moms, but I will laugh when I retrieve her and hear of how my littlest miscreant has pulled pranks and said goofy things and left people scratching their heads!