TOBY

This past week I have learned something....  (more on that later)

So at school because English is not Toby's first language they decided to get a Bulgarian interpreter come to test his language skills.  I knew about it. I didn't know the actual day they were coming but I knew that was the plan.  So all last week Toby was very defiant. He had several days when he was very out of sorts and well... defiant. He knows the word NO and uses it.   He teachers wrote to me and said that he was also being defiant at school and had gone back to overeating and throwing up (3-4 times) and was licking people again.  These are things he has not done for many months.  What is going on with him???   After hearing some other Mom's say that their children got to a place where they did not even want to hear Bulgarian spoken and would get agitated I decided to check and see if the interpreter had been to the school yet... You guessed it.  The week before she had come and Toby wouldn't interact with her.  He didn't appear to understand her and she didn't understand anything he said.  So I have been thinking about this... I should have been there. I should have known that she was coming (the date).  I should have asked and insisted on being there. My mistake.  I really dropped the ball on this one.  The interpreter came and tried to interact with him in Bulgarian and I wasn't there.  What must have been going on in his mind?  Was he scared? Did he think he had to go back to the old life? It took him a full week to get back to his normal self. Toby will interact with anybody!  But not this lady... He might have done better if I had been there.  So my big lesson in parenting is to be MORE involved.  Yes the school should keep me posted on these things but they don't (why didn't they write THAT in his daily log??? They never forget to ask for more pullups) so I need to be there more. Involved whether they want me there or not.  **Now that I know what was happening with Toby I can understand more how he acts when he is *bothered* by something.  He gets defiant and starts doing things he did when we first got him.  Now that I know what happened I can address his behavior with some extra love and time.  It bothers me that he was upset and I didn't even know what had happened.  He seems fine now.  Back to his normal happy self but there will be NO MORE INTERPRETER.  We will proceed with English from now on.