Growing pains

I had a temper tantrum yesterday. Actually, I had two.  DAD was the unlucky recipient of the first.  I cried, I left to run errands, I felt better. 

The second was aimed at the boys' temporary BSC (their usual one is on maternity leave).  I like him, I really do.  He's an older man, new to this career, and very gentle with WINK and SMILE.  But...his main responsibility is to write a new treatment plan for each of my boys. This document is vitally important because it states all the problem areas each boy has, goals for each problem, and how the goals will be obtained.  For example, one of SMILE's problems is that he has trouble communicating with precise language. This is evidenced by statements like "I don't like it" (what's "it").  This leads to tantrums when DAD and I don't understand what is bothering him. Once SMILE is too much in his head, he has no ability to regulate his emotions.  The goal is to help him use more precise language.

Mr. BSC had never done one before.  He said, two weeks ago, that he would be relying heavily on my input to shape the plans.  After all, he went on, I'm the expert and no one knows WINK and SMILE better.  I have to say, I enjoyed the promotion.  I preened my feathers a bit.  But I didn't expect to write them. I've clocked ELEVEN hours with Mr. BSC, DAD was present for three of them, over the past two weeks. Every time I scribbled a note on my draft, he hungrily copied it down like it was wisdom incarnate. I talked, he said it was great, and EVERY TIME he looked at me and said, "Now how do we write that?" 
 !!!!
So...I wrote them. Rewrote them. And just for fun, wrote them again.  TIMES TWO.  While scribbling a map of ideas, this time for WINK, I saw MR. BSC craning his neck to copy down my notes.  I put my pen down and said (a-hem): "Okay, in an effort to communicate precisely and attempt to regulate my emotions so I don't have a tantrum, I'm going to tell you how this will go.  My husband and I are going to scribble a list of issues we want addressed in WINK's plan.  Just to get our ideas on paper. We're going to flesh out each point. So that it doesn't get done wrong (!), I don't want you to write anything until we are done."

Ugh. Poor MR. BSC.   He walked into the lion's den yesterday. He took the reprimand with grace, sat with his hands folded, in fact, and waited.  By the end of the day, my fourth with the BSC, the three of us did bang out and finalize two great treatment plans that I'm hopeful will change the direction of this process and make a huge difference. 

But I'm very tired now. I've brought my kids to speech, occupational, and physical therapy for over a year.  At most of these facilities, there are children with various degrees of different disabilities, some screaming for up to an hour at a time (at physical therapy), and I've done it without complaining
...much.  Actually writing my children's treatment plans, however, didn't give me the bout of empowerment I expected it to. Pouring out my perspective is nothing new.  Wrestling all my ideas and wrangling them into a strict format, beating them into submission, isn't new either since I've been writing since my teens.  But taking a clinical look at my boys?  Being asked to see their disorders first and them second for eleven hours? I'm still hurting from the growing pains.