Settling in and beating the stuttering beast

The Batsman is doing a fabulous job at school.
I love the way he gets up in the morning, ready to put on his uniform and tackle the new school day. He is happy when I pick him up and we are developing a ritual of talking about the high and low point of every day while we walk up the hill to home. He tells me about the other kids, the games he plays and quotes the things his teacher says. I'm so proud of him. There is much to celebrate about getting to here.

The Batsman seems to be relaxed and not too anxious about the big changes he is encountering every day. The power of a meticulously planned transition has definitely come to the fore (she says, giving thanks to her perfectionist, control freak self) and we know this early success is largely due to all the prep and practice we have been doing for months in collaboration with the school.  He couldn't have been more ready.

The only thing that tells me that there is a little anxiety is that the Batsman's stuttering is really bad right now. Almost every word has a bump or a stumble in it. There are words so elongated he runs out of breath. It is hard to listen to and even harder to confront the knowledge that the lack of fluency presents a social barrier for him with peers far beyond any autism related ones. Kids have fast and furious conversations in the playground and if it is taking the Batsman a long time to utter a sentence others may not wait around to hear it. I know the stuttering leaves him vulnerable to teasing too and I hope with my whole heart that we can get it under control again before playground cruelty is a factor.

In the mornings, after school and before bedtime, we are working hard on improving the Batsman's fluency. We have been taught how to do so by our amazing speech specialist who consults with us in person and on the phone. We are lucky to have found her. So every spare minute, we praise his "smooth" speech and gently remind him when he is "bumpy". Right now, this means that there may not be enough time to also do school readers before our boy is yawning. And for now, choosing that priority has to be ok.

I choked back some emotion this morning when I realised that I couldn't really remember what he sounded like when he didn't stutter. And while that thought breaks my heart a little more, I'm using it to motivate me to work even harder to beat that stuttering beast.

Picture via we heart it