A Motherhood Fail. Big Time.

I committed one of the cardinal sins of parenthood...

I held Cathy to a lower standard than I do Matt.  I simply dismissed her inability to color inside the lines, to neatly print her letters and numbers on a line or inside a box as a side effect of her history.  Of the mild, yet pervasive developmental delays of her childhood.

Not once did it occur to me that it could be something, anything else.  And for that I am ashamed.

I received a call from the school nurse in mid-December letting me know that Cathy had failed both her routine vision and hearing exams.  As is the case with many kindergarten kids, it wasn't clear how much of the result was a lack of understanding for what was expected of her versus an actual problem with her vision or hearing.  We were asked to follow-up with an appropriate provider and I quickly scheduled exams with both an optometrist and an ENT specialist (the doctor we saw for recurrent ear infections and ear tubes when Cathy was a toddler).

Earlier this week, I sat in the optometrist's office and learned that my little girl is farsighted.

Rich and I are both nearsighted and so I just always assumed that when my kids started having vision problems (and I am told there's a 70% likelihood that each kid will have problems simply because both their parents have problems), it would be seeing the chalkboard in the front of the room rather than the sheet of paper right under their noses.

We ordered a pair of glasses for Cathy before we left the office... and now we wait.  We wait for the glasses to come in.  And we wait to see what kind of a difference it will make in her coloring, her cutting, her writing skills.  Maybe it won't make all the difference, but in hindsight, I'd bet that her inability to see the things closest to her has hindered her.  How could it not???

She still has her share of challenges... we've recently opened an IEP with the school district which will cover minimal speech and language and occupational therapy support over the calendar year BUT we were told time and time again in our IEP meeting that there are many areas where Cathy is at an age-appropriate level.

And while I am sure there are hundreds of ways that I can, and likely will, fail my kids over the years, I am vowing right now that I will not expect less of her than I do of her brother again.