So I thought I’d send Rory to summer camp. And then I thought I wouldn’t. Because my kid and summer camp, not so likely to mix well.

But then the camp called and had a space available, and we’re reaching the stage where all day long togetherness, while I try to work and he tries to amuse himself, is not always going so smoothly. So I signed him up and took him off.

I should have known.

I did know, really. I’m annoyed that I wasted the money. He was never going to like it.

But I’m also kicking myself. When I first talked to the camp, I specifically asked about reading and writing. (I know, for summer camp? But you’d be so surprised how often it comes up.) The woman reassured me, oh, no, of course not, no reading necessary. This is outdoor camp. This is wilderness camp. Swimming, animal searches, hikes in the woods.

So what did they do the first day? A group story-writing project. And as one of the oldest kids, who got put in charge of the writing? Oh, of course.

When I walked out the door after dropping him off, I really thought about pulling the counselor aside and just mentioning his disability. And then I decided against it. I figured it was unnecessary. I was just being the over-protective mom, right?

Sometimes it feels like the space between being over-protective and being an effective advocate is just too small.

Without formatting, this blog is going to be the blandest thing ever. I want bold. I want italic. I want color, dang it. But I’m attached to Safari. I’ve got so many bookmarks and they are organized just the way I want them.

So Friday is a school conference day: come 1:30 I will get to hear my kiddo and his teacher talk about the year so far and I am surprisingly anxious about it. My sense is that he’s doing really well. I would say that he is making enormous strides, compared to what my expectations were. I feel like that sets the bar too high, though, and I should be prepared for worse news!!

In the beginning of the year, his resource teacher said that sometimes kids were just not developmentally ready to read at the same time as everyone else. Two years ago, I would have totally agreed. Since then I have been so convinced about the verdict of processing disorder/dyslexia that it was almost hard for me to hear that, but now…well, he’s really making progress.

There’s a part of me that wants to believe that he’s not dyslexic at all.

On the other hand, there is a speech dysfluency that goes along with the diagnosis–these delays that I hear in his speech when he’s trying to retrieve information, even simple information. It’s not a stutter; it’s a slowness. He speaks much less fluidly (albeit with an enormous vocabulary) then do other kids his age. And that’s the processing disorder. That’s the information being filed in the right side of his brain, and so taking longer to retrieve. That thing is the same thing that has made reading so challenging.

I think maybe it’s natural to waver, to wonder whether it’s real, to think maybe, maybe…The idea that he just needed to do it in his own time is so appealing. But I don’t really think that’s true. Reading came so easily to me, so hard to him. Even if there was something developmental there, I do believe he’s dyslexic, and that he always will be. I’m also beginning to believe, though, that he’s going to be able to read someday. Really read, not just painfully piece together the words.