IN WHICH I DRAW OUT THE SUSPENSE EVEN FURTHER

Oy. I'm so tired. It's been a nutso week. I'll discuss the Ritalin later, or another time, but things were better today. But anyway, I left you hanging for so long about that life changing phone call by that mysterious Rose so I'll just pick up the thread of the narrative and write until my stamina peters out, which is how I've been operating until now.

But I have to backtrack and fill you in on a few little details prior to Rose's phone call.

So Dovi wasn't doing very well with the therapy, and neither was I. He had six different therapists: Hannah, Bessie, Debbie, Vivian, Malia, and Lynn. There was no communication between them, no one to coordinate what the goals were. (So much for Naomi making a condition for switching over to her agency for Service Coordination; Becca was doing a good job being my "social worker", but there was no coordinator for Dovi's actual goals.) Additionally, they all had different ideas and approaches and requests. Vivian wanted me to try to get a swing, Debbie asked if I could get a little table and chair so she culd work with him better, Malia wanted me to buy bubbles, I forget what Lynn wanted. They were also a little lost on how to work with Dovi since he wasn't responding much to the therapy. So I bought a cute little notebook, pasted a picture of Dovi on the cover and wrote "Dovi's Progress", and the therapists began communicating... sort of.

HOME-BASED ABA IS WORSE THAN CHINESE WATER TORTURE

We last left you off in the latest installment of our serial story (which should be aptly titled "Never A Dull Moment") with our arrival back home from what can be loosely termed "summer vacation", although it had been anything but. I immediately fell onto an endless treadmill of stuff. My husband's second-to-youngest sister was getting married a week later and I did not yet have a dress to wear for the occasion.

So off we the very next morning, boxes still unpacked, to register Chaim for day camp for the one remaining week of the summer (we had come home early due to the selfsame wedding) and then to the underthings store and to the fancy dress store. Thankfully I snagged a pretty black suit - that's what the ladies wear nowadays to weddings around here - and the boxes got unpacked,the house got cleaned up,and I braced myself for the crazy schedule to come.

It didn't happen all at once. Within the first week Dovi slowly started 'related services' in the form of two new speech therapists, Malia and Debbie (Vivian would be coming home from the Catskills a week later) and Lynn the occupational therapist. Dovi cried with all of them. Debbie was "ABA trained" and tried to implement ABA-style methods, which Dovi, of course, hated. Malia, a sweet, 'regular' speech therapist, was at a total loss on how to reach Dovi. Fortunately she had some exciting toys with her, such as the gears toy Vivian used, and Dovi cried the least when she came, viewing it as play time. Lynn immediately zeroed in on Dovi's varied sensory issues and we devised techniques together to get him calm and cooperative. We created a swing out of bedsheets and swung him vigorously together before every session. She initiated a "brushing" program to give him deep sensory input on his skin, and she often created a tent out of  bedsheets and dining room chairs, creating a quiet, soothing, enclosed environment for him to work in. The first month he cried straight through his sessions, but gradually he got used to her techniques and found them soothing and began cooperating with her.

SUMMERTIME, AND THE LIVIN' AIN'T EASY.... or: WHAT THEY DON'T TELL YOU ABOUT ABA THERAPY

Do you remember a time when your really, really wanted something really badly, pinning all your hopes and dreams on it, awaiting that incredible something with massive anticipation, and when you finally got it, it was a major disappointment? Or worse yet, it was horrible, awful, terrible, and you just wished you could give it back but couldn't?

That is exactly what happened when Dovi finally started therapy.

The first therapist to show up was a Speech Therapist, named Vivian. She was gentle and kind and loving, but Dovi just cried and cried throughout the sessions. He refused to sit in one spot and felt overwhelmed by the simplest task, the slightest touch. He did not know what the therapist wanted from him and did not respond to any of her commands. He cried and cried.

And so did I.

It's really difficult to listen to your child cry and be unable to -- or not permitted to -- intervene and make it all go away. My brain knew that this was for Dovi's good and the crying did not mean he was in distress. But my heart was aching and I couldn't take it.