The Long Delay

M in Jerusalem at age 7

Our oldest son, who I'll call M, was six when I started this blog. By this time, we were starting to see behavior just didn't quite meet developmental expectations. Usually, M was sweet and snuggly, but other times he'd be so red-in-the-face angry with seemingly no warning. We lived in a small Jewish community and we were young parents ourselves, so we were slow on the uptake and didn't have a firm grasp of what age-appropriate behaviors were, but it became clear that we needed help.

Parenting books and solicited and unsolicited advice from neighbors, friends, and family turned up were fruitless. We looked to Jefferson County Public School to see if they could provide us with any answers. After a few months of waiting, followed by a series of tests and more waiting, our 'answer' was that he had 'high anxiety' and as far as they could see, no signs of dyslexia or similar learning challenges. 

Disheartened and confused, we looked into how we could reduce his anxiety, but at the same time we were expecting our fourth child, I was homeschooling three children and my husband was studying for his actuarial exams on top of his 55 hour work weeks (if you don't know, those exams are very difficult and require loads of studying). Not surprisingly, things got worse for our son. 

As our youngest child's birth neared, I realized we needed a change and it just so happened I also couldn't have the birthing experience in a birthing center that I wanted in Louisville. So, we temporarily moved 'home' to Austin so that I could give birth to him and just to see what life would be like for us in Texas. 

It felt good here. The tension and pressure of a small Jewish community (as lovely as the people were as individuals) felt virtually non-existent here. Theoretically, we would have in Austin to help us raise our children and we could be in one of the best public school districts in the state (either No. 1 or No. 2 depending on the year), who we were sure could give us the help we needed with M.

Our youngest son was born in March of 2015 and by July we moved back to Austin from Louisville. And this is where my blogging stopped. 

Life was not as easy in Austin as we expected. Our marriage suffered. Our relationships with our children suffered. Our relationships with extended family suffered. 

We put our eldest child into school, but they wanted to wait a year before beginning evaluations. As expected, his behavior was challenging. At home, he could be volatile and abusive toward his younger brothers, harm himself and attack my husband and me. At school, things weren't much different. But, at the same time, we were living with family members while we house hunted and we couldn't be sure that the stress of his living situation wasn't the only factor causing the troubling behavior. 

We had to wait until he was almost nine before the answers came from evaluations at school: Autism with a probability of ADHD. Our journey of learning about neurodivergence had begun, but I was barely hanging on and blogging became a pipe dream. 

M is now 12. My youngest, G, is now the age M was when we moved back to Austin! Time has really done a doozy on us, but it's not over yet! I wish I'd had the 'spoons' available to write over the last six years, but what matters is I'm here now. 

So, here we go. 

M (left) now at age 12