Rowan is Five!

Well, we made it to five!  Those seasoned moms always say, "Enjoy it while you can, time moves fast!"  God, that is SO true, especially with the second child.
I posted on facebook that Rowan has been one of my greatest teachers in life, and that I love him so much for his passion, giggles, sensitivity, silliness, hugs, sense of humor and imagination.  As much as he has provided challenges, I would never trade him for the world, and I know the things that give him his challenging quirks are what give him his awesome, funny, cute and amazing quirks.
Nothing else to say but post a bunch of birthday pics.

Rowan surprised us by taking on the French River rope swing on his birthday.

We decided to start a tradition of letting the boys pick a restaurant to go to on their birthday.
That is how I ended up at McDonald's.

Rowan knew he wanted birthday cake flavored ice cream at the new ice cream shop by our house.  I should have gone to the gym twice on this day.

Rowan opens the coveted fan snowplow he's been asking for since January.

Trying out his new boat in the backyard.

Sign cake

The LVM crew

The water blob

Happy birthday, Rowie Bear!

Labels

A couple of people have expressed concern about us moving forward with getting a diagnosis for Rowan, worried about having a label attached to him.

I worried about this myself for the longest time, which I think is why we have waited so long.  It is obvious to me that the "wait and see" period that was proposed by the two previous experts has passed, Rowan still is exhibiting some red flags, and we are standing in the middle of a crucial period of his development.

The first lucky thing is that Rowan has a summer birthday, so we have some bought time.  I can't even imagine Rowan being ready for kindergarten this fall.  He can't sit still, his emotional maturity has a long way to go, his social development is still developing, he can't and won't hold a pencil.  Luckily, he has one more year to figure out who he is and sort out how he fits into the world.  We have a year of opportunity to get him the help he needs for him to be ready for kindergarten when he does go.  A friend of mine, who has a child with autism, said, "Get the diagnosis and wield it like a weapon!" in response to a pretty unresponsive school district we were dealing with.  We still decided to wait and see.  Here is what I am afraid will happen now if we continue with with wait and see:

-Rowan will never learn how to appropriately ask another child to play.

-Rowan will not learn how to regulate his emotions and have temper tantrums (which have included violence lately) into his school age years.

-Rowan will continue to struggle with handwriting and fine motor activities, making school more frustrating.

-He will continue to invade other people's spaces, yell in their faces, make weird noises and push their buttons.

-Rowan will not develop longstanding friendships

-Rowan's teachers will not understand him

Here's what it comes down to:  if WE don't give him the label and get him the help he needs right now (continued speech/language therapy, occupational therapy, perhaps some counseling for his mom and dad), this behavior will continue into his school years.  Then it will be the KIDS who give him the labels:  That weird kid who doesn't know how to play with us.  That scary kid who freaks out and throws and hits.  The kid who has no friends.

I will do anything it takes right now to stop that from happening.  So I am.