This week Grace started another session of "intensive therapy" at Beginning Steps Therapy. (sorry the photos are so bad, my camera is broken so I'm having to use my phone) She will go everyday for three weeks for three hours each session. This is her third time to do this and this time her sessions are from 1:00-4:00. The first time she did this I stayed most days for all three hours. I was able to do this because it was in the morning and Mack and Sophia were in school. This time however, I am not able to stay every day. Most days I have to meet Mack and Sophia back at the house by 2:00 and other days we have things to get done.
"Mommy, will you stay and watch me today?", Grace will ask me most days and when I can't she cries. But only for a little while. She loves Lissa, her therapist, and I trust her completely. She seems perfectly content when I pick her up but I still feel guilty. I especially feel guilty when I have to leave so I can take Sophia to dance lessons, somewhere I know Grace would love to be and will never really fit in. One day this week, as I was leaving I told Grace I had to take Sophia to dance lessons and I felt bad as if I shouldn't have told her and that Sophia needs to change out her leotard before we pick Grace up. But somehow hiding it from her also feels wrong. What would you do?
3 comments:
This is such a hard one. So far I've managed to find adaptive activities for the girls which welcome siblings/buddies without disabilities...gymnastics this winter and now dance this spring. And it's Hannah that is the one going off and leaving Isabelle behind when she rides horses for hippotherapy which Isabelle would love to do. but I know the roles will reverse soon enough.
I think acknowledging that it stinks that there are some things Grace can't do and Sophia can is really important. I'm not sure you need to hide Sophia's activities from Grace but explaining that they each have special things they do might help, and in an ideal world where you have tons of spare time, money and energy, you could maybe try to find something special for Grace that's not therapy-related, even if it's just once a month but it's something you can do with her and then remind her about that special thing when she sees Sophia going off to do her thing.
Gosh. That stinks. I think twinmama has better advice than I could every give--I'm still newbie at a lot fo this stuff.
I wrote a comment, re-wrote a comment & then finally erased it all. What do I know? Nothing! You're doing a great job with a very difficult situation. And your kids know you love them. That's it!
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