DJ and the specialists

In October My son had his 3 year well check visit. You can read all about it here.

Well the result of that visit was a referral to a bunch of specialists to determine if he had some sort of developmental disorder.

Today was the visit.. it started out like this:

a very grandma looking lady walks into the waiting area and introduces herself, then takes DJ's hand and takes him to some mysterious back room to "play". I'm left standing in the hall way holding my son's jacket, watching their retreating backs. I'm standing there wondering if I should be following or if I should be standing here or going into a room... the Grandma comes back and takes me into what looks like a conference room. there she sits me down and pulls out a stack of papers.... I'm still in shock that some woman I don't know from Adam walked off with my son then came back without him!

She begins asking me questions, and more questions and more questions... all the while making little circles in her packet... and saying things like hmmm and ahh

WTF ok take it easy this lady is a professional. Then like a pair of fighters in a WWF team match she is tagged out by another Lady who takes up where she left off asking questions (how many times are they going to ask me if he's potty trained?). Grandma leaves while lady #2 asks questions.

in the middle of all this a packet has appeared in front of me as well. I am supposed to be filling this out. Lady #2 is doing the question and hmmm thing that Grandma was doing... also making little notes in her packet.... "likes the numbers 7, 8, and 9"

When my son (WHO IS ONLY 3!) counts he repeatedly uses "7 8 9" everything is counted as 7 8 9. It's one of his little idiosyncrasies. Then Grandma comes bursting in the door:
"You mentioned that he had an obsession with colors"
me:"well yeah"
"But I just went through colors and he can't name them"
me:"um well you see he likes to put things is groups according to color, and if you mess up his groups he completely freaks out until its fixed"
"ahhh hmmm ok thank you"

Grandma disappears. and Lady#2 resumes her questioning.....

Grandma comes back and says "He can't hop"
me:"no he loves to hop like a bunny and jump off things.. he does it all the time"
"Even when I gave him my hand for support he wouldn't hop on one foot"
me:"oh well... I've never seen him hop on one foot"
"And he doesn't skip... he just does that one foot shuffle"
Lady#2"hmmm" flips through a few pages in her packet and makes more circles
Grandma: "hmmmm" and leaves

Another tag switch. and Lady#3 comes in. She begins asking questions out of the little packet they keep handing to each other like Olympic runners in a baton relay. In between all of the questioning with Grandma, Lady#2 and Lady#3 Gopher Chick keeps comeing in with various papers for me to sign. In between the tag outs I get about 2 minutes to complete the monster packet they gave me... which is asking questions like "gets mad .... N S O A"
N = Never
S = Sometimes
O = Often
A = Almost always

WTF he's three! and I just told you he freaks if you put the blue crayon with the red crayons!! Wait did I tell that to Grandma or Lady#2... or was that the gopher Chick? I'm confused....

At some point between Lady#2 and Lady#3 DJ was brought back into the room. he is busy playing with every toy (and non toy) in the room. I am trying to answer the questions that Lady#3 has for me and keep him from blowing the place up. Somehow I got my packet done... but I am pretty sure I left a sweat stain on it....

Lady#3 reveals herself as the speech pathologist and gets up to leave, with my son in tow. I get up and follow her out the room...

"Oh would you like to come watch?"
me:"yeah I would"
"OK but I must ask that you remain very quiet while I am testing him.. please don't prompt him with the right words he has to do this by himself"
me:"um, ok"

we are led back to a very little room that has toys everywhere and lots of bright colors... I can see his little brain going into over drive... Lady#3 and I aren't even seated and he already has half the toys out and is handing them to me one at a time...

She has a little easel book with pictures she flips through and asks DJ questions. While she is doing this I see something that I as a parent never really noticed before... I mean I saw it, but I didn't see it.

My son is having a hard time paying attention to what is going on and sometimes it seems like he can't hear her.

So far every lady who has seen my son has had only two things to say:
"He seems to have a hard time staying focused and have you had is hearing checked yet?"

I kept brushing this off when they said it.. but now i am sitting here and tears are building behind my eyes, because the last time I saw a kid act like this was a few years ago... a friend of mine had a daughter who acted like DJ does... turned out she was partially deaf and getting worse...

oh holy crap...

The speech pathologist (aka Lady#3) had 3 things to say:

"He has a lot of sounds that he uses. He doesn't seem to stay focused. Have you had his hearing checked?"

Sweet moses...

So the evaluation finally comes to an end... and I am left with 4 things:
An appointment on January 13th for a meeting with all of the assessors about the results of their studies
A referral to have my son's hearing checked
A very tuckered out three-year old who thinks he just had the best time playing with a bunch of new people
A monkey on my shoulder screaming "YOUR SON IS GOING DEAF AND YOU SHOULD HAVE CAUGHT IT EARLIER"

I called the hearing testing place and guess when the soonest is they can get him in.. HA HA January 29th... how awesome is that...

Being a mom is not easy...

*names have been changed to protect the innocent, the a**holes and the clueless.