Lost Chewy!

Zack had this butterfly chewy toy made by Discovery toys that he was completely addicted to.  We only had one, and I despaired that we'd ever get another because I'm told Discovery Toys doesn't make it anymore.  We took it everywhere, because he was 75% calmer when he had it in his mouth.  Church, grocery stores, school, home with other kids around.....it was all so much easier when Zack had his red butterfly.  He was just less apt to bite someone or scream.

Then a miracle occurred and last weekend at the Dakota County Parent Retreat there was a Discovery Toys vendor who happened to have one, which we bought immediately and I carried it around in my purse like it was gold.  Hooray, now we had two!

Within a couple of days, in the midst of the chaos of taking 3 small children to Target, two of whom need to ride in the cart and touch everything they can reach, I'd left one in a grocery cart.  I checked with Target's lost & found twice, but whoever found it either kept it or threw it away.  Now we were back down to one.

Two days later, the one we had disappeared.  We have no explanation, it's just gone.  So there is a possibility it's in this house somewhere (or the car, or the backyard) and it'll turn up eventually.  We cursed ourselves silently for a while and then I decided it is not good for Zack to be addicted to something that is virtually irreplaceable.  We went to Target and showed him every baby chewy toy they had on the shelf, and he selected one.  Another butterfly, this one is blue.  For the first day he rejected it outright, but by day two he'd put it in his mouth a few times.  Now it's day three, and he still rejects it the first time we offer it, but he comes around after a couple of minutes.

Unfortunately it's no Discovery Toys red butterfly.  He's nowhere near as attached.  But it's all good, because we are now working on getting him to accept a variety of chewy toys, which will make life much easier in the end.

But if that darn red butterfly does turn up, I have a feeling our whole "get used to new chewys" resolve will go right out the window.

IQ Test Results; How Much to Share?

I got the IQ test results this week.  I spent quite a bit of energy thinking about whether or not I wanted to post the numbers.  The actual IQ point numbers.  And I wanted to, for several reasons; I don't want to hold back anything that might be relevant, informative, or helpful to another mom of a little Fragile X kid.  I didn't want to just do this blog thing halfway -- I wanted to discuss the good, the bad, and the ugly. I strived to be truthful.

Yet I was uncomfortable with it, for some unknown reason.

So I have decided not to publish the actual numbers.  I don't want a therapist or teacher who reads this to, even subconsciously, use the number to assign expectations, and lack of expectations, on the boys.  I don't want it to define them.

However, while I won't divulge the number (and my boys did get identical IQ scores!), I will say that in the description of what the numbers mean, the boys' number fell within the range of "moderate developmental delay".  Not "profound" or "severe".  This I found encouraging.  "Moderate", to me, says somewhat minor.  Not "extreme", but just "moderate."  I can live with this.  I can work with this.  I can attach great expectations to this.

I can also be assured that this IQ result is an estimate, based on how few of the questions the boys actually gave an answer to.  I was there, I know what they can do and what they can't, and I know that just because they had trouble answering some questions doesn't mean they didn't know the answer; it may just mean they weren't capable of focusing.  They couldn't settle down enough to take a test.  It would be like me drinking a pot of coffee and then trying to sit down to write a blog post.  Not that I have ever done that before.

I am further convinced it's an estimate since they got exactly the same score, and I witnessed this test -- AJ was a lot more cooperative than Zack was.  The tester barely got a glance and a snort out of Zack.  And yet Zack scored the same as his brother.  Clearly an assumption was made that Zack would have responded the same.  I don't have a problem with this assumption, it's probably true.  And it's one more reason not to attach a great deal of importance and attention on the final "score."

So that's it.  The great IQ test experience is over.  And not nearly as traumatic as I imagined.