Parenting

Parenting is full of moment-by-moment decisions and judgement calls.

Parenting a child like Krassi brings in all sorts of variable that make the challenge of parenting even more...interesting.

Take Saturday, for example. Krassi was doing quite a bit of whimpering. It's important to remember that he has no verbal skills at all, and so far, all of our attempts to help him sign or use other methods of communication have not been successful. He's only been in formal speech therapy for two months, but we still base all of our "communication" with him on essentially five different types of sounds:

• laughter - when things are really good
• mild, low key content shrieking - excited about something
• vowels with a rise and a fall - what I consider "casual conversation"
• whimpering - something's not right
• body-wracking sobs - the world is falling to pieces 

There's not many shades of gray between these. This is pretty much what we get.

So Saturday was whimpering - something wasn't right. So I run through the possibilities (context and the growing history we have with him are hugely helpful.)

1. does he want the green bear that he can't have because someone else is playing with it?
2. is he constipated?
3. is not getting the green bear causing memories to surface from his past - feelings of loss?
4. something that is beyond the scope of my imagination?

And, of course, each one of these four possibilities requires a very different approach from a reasonable parent.

1. "Buck up, kid! Here, play with any of of these [dozen] stuffed animals that you CAN have."
2. up the miralax for a few days
3. snuggles and an open ear
4. who knows???

So, what he got was some form of

      5. All of the above. "Buck up, kid. Here, have some miralax while I snuggle you (which you're not super into) and speak soothingly to you and tickle you a bit while making funny faces."

I take comfort in taking a long view - I may not hit this one right, but hopefully this coupled with my presence tomorrow and the next day and the next will work together to this little boy's advantage. ;)