Wednesday, March 10, 2021

Non-Verbal Communication Misinterpreted

Today I took Teddy to music therapy for the first time since the pandemic. Pre-pandemic, I accompanied Teddy to music therapy each week, so I'm extremely familiar with it. We put services on hold through summer and resumed this fall to round out his therapy for his education this school year. His therapy sessions are smack in the middle of the work day, so our sitters have taken him each week. 

But our sitter was off today, so I took the day off to be mom because Teddy had physical therapy this morning, music therapy this afternoon and a meeting with his caseworker. As we drove to music therapy, I asked Teddy which building it was at because the program has expanded that therapy is now located in two buildings, one on either side of the road. He didn't point at the first building and was very excited when we parked at the second building. I was happy to see how excited he was to attend music therapy.

We waited until exactly 5 minutes before his appointment to minimize waiting room time and headed inside. I kid you not, Teddy was so excited he ran to the front door. We went into the waiting room, and he sat down nicely. I asked for his jacket and asked where I should hang it, and he pointed to the coat rack. He bounced around a few of the chairs, super excited to be at therapy. Then he was pointing to a therapy room, so I said, "Oh, that's where you do therapy?" He tried to go into his therapy room, but I told him we needed to wait for his therapist.

After several minutes, right when I expected his therapist, the lady sitting at the desk came to us and informed us that Teddy's therapy was across the street. (I'm guessing it took her a few minutes of texting Teddy's therapist to make sure she hadn't moved the location ... either that, or she was so entertained by Teddy's exuberance that she wanted to soak it up.) 

As we headed across the street, I asked Teddy why he didn't tell me. The little stinker was so excited because he thought we were going back to somewhere he hadn't been in a year, not the same ol' place he goes every week with Ms. Bri. 

Guess there's probably some merit in this new communication device that's supposed to arrive Monday ...

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