You OK?

Throughout the day Deuce likes to check on his baby sister. Caught this picture yesterday.

Well, we took Deuce to have his screening earlier this week, and I honestly don't know how I feel about it. Nothing bad happened, I guess actually it was good, but it was somewhat suspect to me too.

Just to make a long story short, the screening with the SLP (speech and language pathologist) was just supposed to be 15 minutes and she would then decide what, if any, kind of evaluation Deuce would need. Within those first 15 minutes he screamed because he didn't want to leave the fish pond in the lobby, and kind of got excited at the fish and "flapped" his hands. She then started saying she would refer us to someone who could test for autism.

Now Asa used to be a manager at a major hospital, and knows a lot about insurance, so started to ask her questions that kind of made it sound like our insurance may not cover treatment. The screening then ended up lasting 45 minutes, but she was spending more time with Deuce and hearing how he does talk and pronounces some words and react to stuff. By then end of the conversation she said to scratch the idea of getting screened for autism and work on things at home and be sure to get him into more social situations with kids his age (he's really just around his cousins, who are all older than him).

So that's why I'm still a little numb and don't know what to think. There comes the idea that my child is a Black male, and folks are unfortunately going to be quick to "label" him for all of his life, especially the formative/schooling years. But there's also the question of did she change her tune when Asa started talking insurance, or was it because she spent more time with him and was able to get a bigger view of how he really behaves?

So we'll see. I've pretty much taken this semester off, so I don't feel like I have to "choose" what to do - I've got 4 years left to complete my degree, but I don't get this time back with my kids. I took him to library time this week, and he did well. Started off a little rough, but by the end he was enjoying being there with the other children (who seemed to all be older unfortunately).

But it looks like he's OK, or at least will be. It's just sad when he gets frustrated because he can't tell me stuff, but at least he's trying. That's all I can ask.