On the Road

I told Noah about the bus. A silly conversation to have with a kid who doesn't have the slightest grasp on the concept of time, but I told him anyway. "Next year, you'll ride the bus to school, and it will come right to our house!" I told him. He immediately ran to the window to wait.

"Where the school bus, Mommy?" he asked, over and over.

***

Ever since I attempted to explain why a featurette about Cruella De Vil from our 101 Dalmations DVD was not the actual movie, Noah thinks her name is actually "Bonus Material."

***

When I ask him to go get something from another room, he walks to the door, spins around and points his finger out to me. "I'll be right back!" he assures me. He talks another step and spins around again, just in case I didn't believe him. "I'LL BE RIGHT BACK!"

***

A baby was crying at Target. "Oh no, Baby Ezra's crying," Noah said. Before I could tell him that it was a different baby, he saw that Ezra was just fine. "It's okay, Mommy, it's not OUR Baby Ezra," he informed me.

***

We had an interview yesterday for a Sensory Integration/Occupational Therapy summer camp. It was. Another thing. Just like all the other things from the past few months. Or years. I forget now. The receptionist was pretty impressed with my binder. Noah played and laughed and attempted to play with another awkward little boy, though it soon disintegrated into his typical blend of dinosaur roars and frustrated, panicked grasping for the right words and finally tears when the other little boy ran away because he was afraid of dinosaur roars.

The therapists looked over his IEP goals and boggled over the idea that someone thought he was ready for pre-writing skills because look at him! Look how he moves! His body in space! His proprioceptive system! His syntax and misuse of pronouns! That poor child has no sense of who and where he is in the world! He needs full-body OT before bilateral integration and at that point the conversation veered distinctly out of the realm of Stuff I Have Googled. I told them he did pretty well with our shoe box obstacle course at home and asked if they had any morning programs in the fall. They did! Here's a brochure.

"PER WEEK?" I squawked. "That's the price PER WEEK?"

They mentioned the possibility of our insurance paying for part of it.

"Uh-huh. Sure," I said glumly.

"I know," one of them sighed, making a face.

Noah didn't want to ever leave. He threw himself into the ball pit and attempted to hold onto the balls like you'd grip carpet. The camp director coaxed him out and back to the waiting room and told me that Noah got the gold star for the least dramatic exit meltdown of the day. "He's FANTASTIC," she laughed. "What an adorable little guy."

They had one spot left in the camp. They also accepted MasterCard, so we took it.

***

On the way home, I absent-mindedly pointed to a fire engine on the side of the road. Its lights were flashing and a cop was pulling up and...oh crap, there was an ambulance and more firefighters and I'd just directed my three-year-old's attention to a major car accident. The car was facing us, easily visible, smashed to all hell. EMTs were attending to a shaken-looking young woman on the ground. Fuck, I thought.

From the backseat, Noah cheerfully labeled everything he saw. "Look at that FIRE ENGINE! And another fire engine! And a police car and an ambulance! Look, I see them!"

I tensed up, waiting for the rest of the scene to register, when Noah suddenly turned his head and spotted something on the other side of the highway. He shrieked.

"IT'S THE SCHOOL BUS!"

And it was.