Brain Waves

Dearly Beloved went to the neurologist with Douwe for the follow up. Please note who did not go. How did it happen that the most suspicious person on the whole planet, the original "show me" girl who believes nothing she has not personally witnessed and then really only about half of that, did not go along?

Please note who else did not go.

No car seat for Daan. Seriously, the car seats were in Nel's car, and Nel's car was with Nel at work. Yes, I know I made it through my childhood regularly sleeping above the back seat on that little shelf next to the rear windshield (what's that thing called, dad? I forget.) and despite no doubt blocking the view never got maimed even once. I know all that. And to be honest, illegal or not, I probably would have just strapped Daan's tiny self into the regular seat and gone and planned to tell the nice police officer that we were, after all, going to the hospital (isn't there a going to the hospital defense?) except for one small thing. There was snow on the ground everywhere. The temp was hovering just at freezing. And the news was all full of stories about how Holland, despite having had no snow or ice to speak of, was already running out of salt for the roads. (They gave it all to the deserving poor in Germany and Austria or some such thing).

I just couldn't do it. Douwe had to go, the doc wanted to see him again. And he is big enough anyway to be street legal without a seat. But Daan is not only young, he is a tiny child. He is tiny on the scale that his mother is tiny (though strangely, they say that he is expected to make it to somewhere between 5' 11 and 6' 1" based on what I have no idea. Joss sticks and Tarot cards, probably. He is not supposed to do it until he is in his late teens, though.) . I had visions of the car veering into or being veered into by another car. Most of my visions centered around the parking lot, to tell you the truth. The freeway I wasn't worried about.

So we stayed home and played games while the boys went off to the doc.*

The doc says that Douwe is a regular 5 year old with a speech disorder. His weird behavior is related to the speech disorder and is, all things considered, not all that weird. He said one rather odd thing: he says the EEG indicates that he has a very active imagination. Well, I agree, the child has designed an entire diving outfit and is swimming with Jacques Cousteau on a weekly basis. **

However, this sounds very medieval to me (what, his beta waves come out in patterns depicting Mickey Mouse and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang? What?).

The Doc says that ideally he ought to go to the speech school in a nearby city, but that his problem may not be serious enough to qualify him to be enrolled there. In the alternative he suggests a Montessori program with some support to be provided by the same speech school -- which support can range from an aide in the classroom to additional clsses on the side.

So our next step is to fill out more piles of paper from the speech school. At the speech school , they will test him again from top to toes (again, *sigh*) but will evidently use tests designed with speech problems in mind. So, for instance, if his intelligence is to be teted, they will use a nonverbal intelligence test. It is my understanding that there is more chance of actually gettign some result from the testing in this way (as a fair amount of testing of Douwe has resulted in complete failure because at some point he just decides he's done with this little game).

I have to say, I have been most impressed by Paul's organization of this latest undertaking, he was coordinating with the family doctor, the neurologist's office, both schools, and the speech therapist within twenty minutes of getting home from the doc. He has left the current school out of the loop because, well, apparently they are now out of the loop in his vision. But after all this time it is rather nice to watch someone else make all those phone calls and follow up and so on.

We are to tour the speech school in early April; Douwe is to have a tryout day at the Montessori in mid March. So off we go. But anyway, at least we have some direction to go.

* Anybody remember why Daan has the birthday he has despite being scheduled to be born by c section four days earlier? Yep, freak snow in Atlanta that year resulted in cancellation of all non emergency surgery and gave Daan time to be born on his own timetable. Though in the end all our plans were foiled and he was a c after all. So there you go. Daan is only 3, but snow keeps figuring into his life.

**The outfit consists of footie pajamas, a set of swim goggles, a mouthpiece removed from the pipe part from a snorkel, two of those washcloths which are sewn into a pocket on his feet for flippers, his Bob the Builder backpack for the aqualung and a set of suspenders to connect the aqualung and the mouthpiece.