It’s a season in our lives full of endless therapies and evaluations. I never quite get used to the ratings, the gingerly delivered disclaimers that “this is what we were able to observe today, and doesn’t necessarily encompass all that your son is capable of.”

We’ve rated his communication at a 12-18 month level. For self help skills, he’s operating at 2 years 4 months. Social aptitude, 1 year 10 months. On and on, ages in months, ages in abilities, and I can’t hear the message because I’m too busy doing math. How far behind are we? What does the deficit look like? If we’re talking about Owen, how does his progress compare to where Tim was at this age?

Everyone is direct but reserved, compassionate but patronizing. Cut the disclaimers, I want to tell them. I know the song and dance, just give me the numbers. I know it’s a kindness, but I don’t have time for it. I’m busy figuring out just how bad it is, and how I’m supposed to feel.

And so much of it is subjective. It’s not just how one of them performed on a given day, among strangers. It’s also the zillions of questionnaires, the perspective of the parent who filled them out this time. We see different things, remember different things, find meaning in different things. Too many parent interviews have devolved into tangents as we compared notes, insisting that certain behaviors are more or less common than the other parent believes, or more or less significant. The evaluators say that’s normal, and even valuable. That’s why they want us both there when we can be.

But it makes you question your lived experience.

And then there are these bright spots. In every evaluation we’ve been through, Tim’s enthusiasm or Owen’s outrageous showboating has broken through the polished veneer of cordial professionalism. There is always a giggle, a hidden smile, a thousand percent sincere but quickly reined back in. Even the most experienced clinicians can’t help but be charmed by our sons, and there’s something about that that makes me feel like we’re all going to be okay. That people who have no allegiance to me or mine, no loyalty-driven desire to care, will see the light inside of my children, and love them for themselves.

The decades stretch out ahead of us, and I don’t know what life looks like even a year from now. I have these dreams of things just getting better and better – that the leaps they are making in communication and self-care and cognition will compound until we’ve traveled a million miles from today. Like we’ll all look back on this life stage – so often exhausting, grueling, and short on cope – and smile, squeeze each other’s hands, and know that we slayed the dragon together. And then we can move on to the next gauntlet. (Puberty, anyone?)

I have to believe that someday, when I ask my kids how their day was, they will respond. And someday, they’ll pepper me with questions because they have become curious about the world around them. And someday, they’ll be able to tell me their likes and dislikes, and maybe even the why behind it.

I don’t go in for blind faith very often, but today, it’s helping me hold it all together.