The (Belt) Loop

Last week, Noah decided that he wanted to quit karate.

I've always told him it's okay if he wanted to quit karate (usually mid-argument over getting his uniform on and out the door in time for class), but he's always insisted that no, he doesn't want to quit. He wants a black belt. 

Well, that's not technically true, I guess. There was one point in kindergarten when he said he wanted to quit, but didn't like our stipulation that sure, you can quit, but you need to go tell your teachers in person. He waffled for a bit, then finally made it into the office, where he quickly changed his mind after 30 seconds of pep talk from a specific instructor. (Who he worships, but kind of in the same way one worships a terrifying, vengeful god.) He kept at it and seemed to be even more dedicated to the black belt goal than ever, after that.

This time, that particular instructor is out on maternity leave, and he had no such qualms about sauntering right in and quitting. 

And my bluff was called.

I don't WANT him to quit. Sure, I can think of a million other things I could do with the monthly tuition and all the schlepping back and forth two times a week, every week. (Four times, actually, now that Ezra's involved and on a completely different class schedule.) But he's worked so hard at this and come so far, plus exercise and focus and discipline and (yes) self-defense skills and etc. And he's good at it. He really is.

But if karate wasn't fun and he hated it, what can you do? I hated piano lessons and ballet with the heat of a thousand suns as a kid and finally my parents had enough of my whining and let me quit. I regret quitting both; not that I was particularly skilled at either, but it'd be nice to have something to show for the time I spent doing each, like being able to play something besides Twinkle Twinkle Little Star or walk across a floor without falling on my ungraceful ass. But I don't blame my parents for "letting" me quit — I was completely adamant about the decision. 

HOWEVER. In my preemptive defense for the rest of this entry, Noah didn't want to quit because it wasn't fun and he hated it.

He graduated to the "big kid" program a couple months ago and yes, it's much harder and more demanding and it's technically for 8 to 12 years olds, and he's in there at 7.5 because he simply tore through the little kid program at a breakneck pace and never missed a belt test. But that wasn't why he wanted to quit either.

He wanted to quit because he'd gotten the names of two katas (forms) mixed up and was convinced the teachers were teaching him "wrong." He argued with them and stressed about it and wouldn't listen to any explanation. And then he worked himself up into a classic rigid-thinking lather about it, refusing to admit that he'd made a mistake and refusing to see any other course of action other than quitting. It wasn't that he didn't know the forms or couldn't perform them properly — he was just...well, he was stuck in the loop and couldn't get himself out. 

We talked. We bargained. Private lessons. A couple weeks off. His instructor demonstrated the forms and explained the differences. We assured him that the name mix-up was understandable and no big deal and not worth quitting over. We called the instructor out on maternity leave on the phone and had her talk to him and promise to come see him do the forms once he felt better about them.

Noah immediately agreed...until we hung up the phone, at which point her god-like influence evaporated and he went right back to being a rigid little ball of anxiety over it. 

We eventually left without resolving anything. I told them not to start the cancellation process even as Noah burst out of the office and shouted "I JUST QUIT KARATE!" to no one in particular. 

Ezra had just finished his class, so I took all three boys to a coffeeshop for our traditional post-karate snack. And then immediately made the mistake of trying to resume negotiations with Noah. Why? I DON'T KNOW WHY. I'M NOT VERY GOOD AT THIS. STILL.

A very loud, very public tantrum followed, the kind that makes EVERY PERSON AROUND YOU stop and notice and judge you accordingly for not controlling that child, that child who is too old to be acting like that. Or, among the more sympathetic, judge you for making that poor child sob like that, you stage-mothering monster. 

(The situation was made even more surreal by the fact that this guy, in all his neon question-marked glory, was sitting two tables away.)

We immediately left, of course. I got a very nice long look at the tile floor on the way out, lest I make eye contact with anyone. Not my finest hour, by a longshot.

I tried to drop the subject at home, though I did send Noah to his room to calm down. When I went to check on him he seemed more open to discussing things again and I got him to agree to help me count his belts. I bet him he had completed more belts than were left in his path to a black belt. He disagreed, claiming that black was too far away and he'd never get there anyway.

I won. Ten belts down, seven to go. He seemed genuinely surprised. I left him to contemplate the math.

Jason came home, was briefed on the day's events, went upstairs...and everything promptly fell to pieces again. 

"You weren't kidding," he said sadly. "What do we do?"

We discussed the options. We could let him quit, obviously. We could let him take a break and continue to reason with him in the meantime. We could simply toss him in the car and drag him there. 

Or we could bribe him.

Over dinner, we talked about other things. A couple things nicely dovetailed with the issue at hand and I tried some social story Jedi tricks on him. "Hmm, so it sounds like you made a mistake but admitted you were wrong instead of getting upset about it! And everything was still okay! That's great!"

(Noah immediately glowered at me. I know what you're doing, woman, and it's not going to work.)

Finally, we bribed him. We incentivized him, tempted him, made him an offer he could not refuse.

If he makes it to black belt, we will take him to Legoland. 

You could practically HEAR the record scratch in Noah's brain as the needle jumped off the track. Redirection? Achieved. Rigidity? Left in the goddamn dust.

He ran upstairs to put his belt back on. "I'M GOING BACK TO KARATE!" he shouted. "QUITTING IS NOT FOR ME AFTER ALL."

Ike followed him, and came back downstairs with one of Noah's older belts. "Hawp?" he asked me.

I woke up at 4:30 this morning, staring at the ceiling and rehashing yesterday's (COPIOUS) parental failings and worrying that we'd done the wrong thing. The bribe — ahem, I mean the INCENTIVE — felt like cheating, and maybe we should have let Noah make the decision, even if we thought (or knew) his reasons were coming from a questionable source. 

Noah woke up at 7:00, and sailed through the morning like a weight had been lifted. He was his bubbly, happy self for the first time in...oh.

Since he told me he wanted to quit karate last week. Huh.

"I'm so happy I'm back in karate, " he said with a big sigh, over breakfast. "I'm going to learn the forms and it's okay that I had the names wrong. Mr. W will show them to me and then! I'm back in karate! For good this time!"

I still don't know if we did the right thing or not. But this morning I just lifted my arms over my head.

"WHEEEEE!" I said, and I gave him a high-five. 

Occupational Gratitude

Noah first met his occupational therapist at summer camp. He was three-and-a-half years old and had already developed a fierce dislike of school (and any school-like activities) and a deep distrust of teachers (and any teacher-like adults). But for some reason, Ms. M___ was different. He liked her. He liked her a lot. 

For over three years now, she's worked with him. First, almost daily, at preschool, then weekly. She was his anchor, the thing he looked the most forward to all week, the one person who could always — ALWAYS — coax the most and the best from him. Balance, coordination, motor planning, social skills, play skills, handwriting, attention span, self-regulation. She's encouraged him, pushed him and challenged him. But most of all she's believed in him, and loved him. Genuinely, unconditionally.

She's the first person to hear about Noah's victories and breakthroughs, big or small. She is one of his biggest cheerleaders.

She's also the first person I talk to when I'm having a rough time, or need ideas or strategies or some empathy from someone who gets it. Or maybe just to geek out about The Hunger Games. She's kind of been my cheerleader, too. 

Yesterday she told me that she's moving on. She's resigned. She's accepted a new job somewhere else, and the countdown to Noah's final session has begun. 

We both cried. She cried the hardest. 

I haven't told Noah yet. God. That's going to suck. 

The good news is that I know Ms. M___ and I are going be awesome friends now, and that she's not really going anywhere. Except maybe to our house, and my couch, since we'll allowed to hang out and drink wine and play with Noah in the backyard. 

And you know? It's time. It really is. Noah's doing great. Beyond great, really. And other kids deserve to be great now too. I wish I could tell those kids and their families that man, you guys, you're so lucky.

You're about to meet the person who is going to change your life. 

The Face of Awesome

I don't know about you, but I'd give money to that face.

Before anyone jumps to the wrong (yet probably all-too-common these days) conclusion: No worries, Noah's photo wasn't ganked from my blog or Facebook. TLC is the non-profit organization that has been helping Noah (and us) for years now. It's where he attended the Miraculous Summer Camp of Miracles and The Preschool That Changed Our Lives. He still receives weekly occupational therapy there for ongoing issues with rigidity, self-regulation, social skills, etc. A couple years ago they asked if they could take photos of Noah and his therapist for brochures and stuff, and we agreed. I always forget about it, though, until one of the photos shows up somewhere, blast-from-the-past style.

I don't know how much longer Noah will require OT. (After several ridiculous tussles with several ridiculous insurance companies, we are finally on a plan that covers the weekly sessions without protest, so I am admittedly in no rush to change anything or draw the slightest bit of attention to ourselves.) All around, the reports are good-to-excellent: his teachers, his therapists, even his karate instructors are singing his praises and talking about corners turned, strides made, breakthroughs and maturity and etc. We're firmly in a "flow" portion of the endless ebb and flow cycle that is Noah's unique way of developing. Behavior, focus, flexibility, everything has taken a big leap forward. Even his eating habits have improved.

(You know what's responsible for THAT? A McDonald's Happy Meal hastily purchased at a drive-through while traveling to the beach this summer. He was too busy watching the damn TV in the damn minivan to protest. He discovered that McDonald's cheeseburgers are delicious, and has since been completely willing and enthusiastic to try other new foods in case they are also delicious. This weekend we went to a restaurant and he ORDERED A STEAK. What in the hell of a what, I ask you.)

Before school started, he was worried. He's beginning to sense that he's a little different, and aware that certain things are harder for him. He wants to do good and be good, but just...can't, sometimes. Even after all these years of camps and schools and evaluations and therapy, he's never asked why he goes to TLC or has two classrooms at school, or what "OT" stands for. 

And so we had our first real talk about it. About some of it, anyway. 

(I try not to hammer you guys with tons of self-promoting links, but this week's Advice Smackdown is more personal than usual, so if you follow Noah's story you might enjoy it.)

A few weeks later, he doesn't seem too worried. He seems happy. I'm happy. 

When he saw his picture on the brochure that came in the mail, he didn't ask what it was for or why he was on it. 

Instead, he held it up over his head. "Look Mom," he shouted. "I'M FAMOUS!"

 

The Next Big Thing

We met with a new child psychologist this morning. So I spent last night organizing and re-filing the mountains of old paperwork we've collected over the years. Old evaluations, assessments, treatment plans, progress reports, IEPs, re-evaluations, insurance rejections and appeals and God knows what else. 

Something old, something new, something photocopied, something blue.

(The cup. The cup is blue. The cup is also full of vodka.)

Reading through those old files is both oddly inspiring and completely masochistic. On the one hand, how far he's come! The things he says and does! The mind-boggling number of victories, both large and small (and medium and miniscule!), that we've celebrated since that fateful day when I took my non-verbal almost-two-year-old to the pediatrician. When that pediatrician cocked his head to the side and asked, "Does he walk like that a lot? On his toes?" 

He did it. We helped. I have no doubt that the things we've done and the people we've worked with have absolutely helped. There are miracle workers in that pile of papers. Bona fide. 

And yet. Ugh. The mistakes are all there too. The consent to discontinue services form I signed for Early Intervention. The progress reports from the mainstream preschool he never should have attended. The very first psychological evaluation that revealed a child buried so deep within himself, that made me wonder if we'd ever be able to pull him out, that made me wonder how in the world I'd missed how serious things were. Noah wasn't just "challenging." Noah was...well, something with an acronym. Something with a diagnosis, a code, something that probably wouldn't just vanish at the end of the "terrible threes."

(And the money. Oh my God. The money.)

But then this morning, we were asked for that diagnosis. And for the millionth time we sighed and shrugged. It's complicated. Little from column A, a little from column B, a little from column Planet Quirkozoid of the Weirdo Nebula. Nobody will commit to Any One Thing and there's always an asterisk after every evaluation. He's Spectrummy and Inattentive and Hyper and Uncoordinated and Anxious and Rigid. He's also Smart and Imaginative and Verbal and Affectionate and The Type Of Kid Strangers Watch At Parties And Declare That There's Nothing Wrong With That Child, So Why The Hell Do You Have An IEP Again?

We talked with her for close to two hours. We probably could have talked for another two, easy. At the end, I handed her the freshly organized binder, full of the Old. 

I'll pick it up next week, when we once again start something New. He'll visit and play and talk about his feelings and fears and what it's like to live inside his head. They're going to do some yoga together. 

In with the New, onward, ever upward, packed to the gills with hope and optimism. He can do it. We can help. 

Brave Little Toaster

Once upon a time, I was the mother of a little boy who was scared of the bathtub. Who was scared of so, so many things. 

He wanted to be brave. He tried to be brave. But when your brain sends you into fight-or-flight mode over the sound of a nearby lawnmower, or the feel of grass on your bare feet, it's hard to brave. It's hard to try new things when you can't process them, when you can't articulate what you're even afraid of, when you can't work those new things out to their logical conclusion.

Even when the logical conclusion is: This is supposed to be fun, dammit. 

"I know what that is!" he said, pointing at the rental snorkel gear. "It lets you breathe underwater! Can I try it?"

Uhh. Okay? Sure. Yes.

The thing is, if we'd asked or offered, he probably would have said "NO." And that's okay. We've finally figured out how to sit back and wait for him to ask. To surprise us.

And to always say "yes" when he does, even if it scares us, a little.

Way to go, Noah. You're officially and for-real the bravest kid I know.

BONUS:

!

!!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Go, Ninja

Noah's IEP meeting went very well, by the way. (The plot points! They are dangling!) Of COURSE it went very well. I always get myself so needlessly lathered up about these meetings ahead of time -- a peril of being overly-informed about other people's horror stories, probably -- and then we show up and remember that oh. Right. These people actually give a shit. About their jobs and their students and that whole "making a difference in the life of a child" thing. 

I'd gotten a somewhat...strange phone call from the school psychologist the week before that knocked me a bit off my axis, and then a conversation with a classmate's mother at a birthday party set me even more on edge. Because this same psychologist was causing problems for them and everything about their IEP was contested and a struggle and the whole thing sounded crazy combative and stressful. Just like another mother had described their experience this year to me a few weeks before, at another party. Sternly-worded letters! Hired advocates! Parents storming out of meetings! Peace negotiations all blown to hell!

I think I need to stop attending so many birthday parties. Or find something else to talk with people about. Hey, did anybody else see The Hunger Games? 

I really do love Noah's school. And his teachers. They are doing an amazing job, and sometimes it blows my mind to stop and realize how far Noah has come. Our IEP meeting was calm, collaborative and about as low pressure as it gets. I think first grade is going to be just fine, for all of us. 

***

One of Noah's playmates learned to ride his bike without training wheels a few months ago. He's a year younger than Noah, and his new skill triggered a bit of competitive peer pressure throughout the neighborhood, and we watched training wheels disappear left and right, it seemed. But Noah, of course, did not care. Did not want. Did not even want to hear the mere suggestion of taking his training wheels off. 

So we did what we always end up doing. We bribed him. Take the training wheels off and learn to ride your bike from corner to corner by yourself, and we'll take you to the toy store and buy some Legos. 

"Ninjago Legos? Like in a big box? The kind that cost too many dollars?" 

Whatever Lego set you want, dude. 

"Okay."

I figured he'd live with this lofty goal in a strictly figurative, hypothetical sense for awhile. That we'd float the idea out there and he'd think about it some more, no pressure, until he really felt good and ready to make an attempt.

Instead, he demanded that the training wheels come off his bike that very instant. LET'S DO THIS THING.

While Jason took care of the wheels I tried to have a talk with Noah about how he would need to practice, that it might take awhile for him to figure it out, and that he would need to stick with it even if he thought it was too hard.

His perfectionistic streak can be vicious, unfortunately -- it even came up during his IEP meeting. "Noah needs to take more risks," his teachers said. "If he's not 100% confident that he'll be good at something, he refuses to try, or he starts and quits immediately."

Getting Noah on a bike in the first place was an epic struggle, and it's never really been one of his favorite activities. Even with the training wheels, he's prone to crashes and falls, or frustration over not going as fast as the other kids who fly down the hill with no fear. 

"I'm a tiny little bit scared," Noah said. "But that's okay, right?"

Definitely. And me too.

I watched for awhile. He was wobbly and positively insistent that Jason not let him go, at all, no no no no. After each run Jason needed to coax him into trying again, and again. About what I expected, honestly.

Don't Let Go from amalah on Vimeo.

I went inside and started loading the dishwasher. Maybe he'll get it by the weekend, I thought. It's spring break so we'll have plenty of time to practice, and as long as we can avoid a bad fall or something like...

Jason came in about 10 minutes later. "Well, he did it! Where are my keys?"

"SHUT UP," I said. I ran back outside. 

"I DID IT, MOM!" he hollered. 

He grudgingly agreed to a single demonstration -- dammit, woman, that toy store isn't going to stay open ALL NIGHT, you know -- but did let me get in some hugs and a couple "I'm so proud of you's" before he climbed in the car, chattering happily away about Sensei Wu and Lord Garmadon mini-figures or maybe he should pick some more Star Wars Legos? No, ninjas. Definitely ninjas. Ninjas are the coolest ever. 

"Teachers Don't Have Phones."

And with that, the question over whether or not he was telling me the truth was answered. 

We caught Noah in his first big, sustained lie yesterday. The details are exhaustively boring, but suffice to say he'd figured out a way to game his token/reward system at school and make us think he was earning more points for good behavior than he was. Then exchanging those points for treats at home like playing video games or getting some Halloween candy. (That is not actually from Halloween, but just what the boys call candy year-round here.)

I'd grown suspicious and questioned him a few times, and he remained consistent with his cover story (his teacher couldn't find the stamp so she marked his paper with a crayon instead) and insisted that he was telling the truth. 

"I promise, Mom," he'd say, cooly and calmly, with perfect eye contact and an earnest, dimpled smile.

That was what made me back off, every time: the eye contact. Noah remains a jumble of different quirks from both on and off the Spectrum -- at his last IEP his teacher said she absolutely didn't want to change his diagnosis code from the catch-all "Developmental Delay" yet because she simply cannot figure him out, because he simply ISN'T just one thing or the other and doesn't seem to really fit any of the "usual" codes -- but eye contact is a big deal. If he's upset or overwhelmed in the slightest, it's the first thing to go. 

But yesterday the cover story took a turn for the improbably convoluted. I listened to him chatter on, asked a question and sensed the teeniest, tiniest bit of "OH SHIT MAYDAY MAYDAY" in his voice as he quickly tried to backtrack -- yet his words never seemed to fail him, and he continued to speak clearly and articulately. He wasn't making sense to me, but in a different way. There was no hint of his word retrieval/processing problems; he just sounding like a typical kid attempting some verbal gymnastics while trying to assure me that I'd misunderstood the first version of events he'd just described.

Finally, I told him I was going to call his teacher and ask her about it. He jumped back three feet and froze. "Don't call her," he whispered. 

He wouldn't tell me why he didn't want me to call her. He repeated the story again. He promised he wasn't lying. 

"Why don't you believe me, Mom?" he asked, his voice so full of hurt that I wavered again, because if there's one thing Noah is not, it's an actor. He still won't wear costumes or pretend to "be" anyone during play, and he gets unnerved when Ezra incorporates emotions into their games, like fake crying or anger.

But still, I didn't believe him because my gut didn't believe him. The developmental stuff was a convincing smokescreen, but if I pushed it back and stared at the piece of paper covered with suspiciously childlike scribbles that he insisted were done by an adult, well. Come on, dude. 

I repeated my intention to call his teacher. 

"You CAN'T!" he wailed.

"Why not?" I asked. "Is she going to tell me something different?"

"No! I don't know!" he paused. "You can't call her because...TEACHERS DON'T HAVE PHONES."

Aaaaand there it was. The wheels were falling off. We'd hit the limits of the logic ceiling. 

I gave him another chance to fess up -- I assured him that I cared much, much more about the truth than I did about how many points he was getting at school, but that there would be definite consequences and loss of privileges if I had to find the truth out from someone else.

Instead, he opted to double down. "I am telling the truth," he said, with a perfect poker face.

I went upstairs to get my shoes on -- we needed to leave in a few minutes for his occupational therapy appointment, after all -- but apparently Noah thought I was calling his teacher right then. Jason found him staring up after me with a look of nervous, stomach-churning agony. 

I was halfway back down the stairs when the confession started. 

"I just wanted more Halloween candy," he admitted.

***

Lying is bad and wrong, of course. And being lied to by your child is annoying. Choosing punishments and reinforcing the importance of the truth while curbing your own white-lie fibbing habit is an exhausting and not-particularly rewarding part of parenting.

But oh, you guys, it's also just so normal. 

Mr. Fixit

We have an IEP meeting today, the first of two IEP meetings scheduled over the next few months. For this year is Noah's re-evaluation year, the year he's due for...wait for it, oh, you'll never guess...a re-evaluation of his strengths and weaknesses and needs and services, up to an including the Big Label that keeps him in special education and keeps my mother-in-law up at night for fear of his PERMANENT RECORD and her continued, unshakable belief that the public school system is legally allowed to tie him to a cheerful Circle Time Chair and forcibly inject Ritalin into his veins. IT HAPPENS. SNOPES IS IN ON IT TOO.

This particular meeting is, quite frankly, going to be bullshit. Not much more than a procedural checkpoint. We will show up and be told about all the different evaluations and testing procedures they plan to do before our next IEP meeting, the big one that will determine his placement for first grade. (Where there are no Circle Time Chairs, but I believe you may be able to request one of those coin-operated massage recliners for your child's Clockwork Orange-style med drip. Fingers crossed!) They will hand us five trees' worth of paper detailing everything we just talked about and our 17th copy of the Parental Rights & Responsibilities handbook that we cannot turn down because they found a typo on page 47 of the last version, thank you and we'll see you again in a couple months, time for the next family, moving on, thanks. 

***

At almost half past six years old, Noah has no real trace of a speech delay, the thing that started All Of This. He never shuts up, actually. Sometimes his grammar is a tad mixed up and full of extra words that buy him precious processing seconds, and he still adorably pronounces V as B. (As in "This lebel of Plants Bersus Zombies is really hard.") But other than that, he's your typical chatty exuberant omg inside voice, Noah kid. Bonus: he's learned all kinds of delightful words from his classmates, or at least he thinks he has. 

"Damage!" he says, deviously scanning my face for a reaction. "Beenis slug! Poople tale!"

His brain seems to be running a constant loop of things he's seen or heard -- usually TV or movies which he memorizes like a human tape recorder -- and he has a hard time turning off the recall or understanding that not everybody else in the room has any idea what he's talking about when he randomly decides to talk about how the bad bird was up on the roof but then the thing fell down and that was funny, right? Right? Right Mom? Right? 

"What are you talking about?" I usually end up asking, exasperated that I am unable to coax more than five words from him about his day at school but will get several hundred about some bit of an Angry Birds fan video he watched once on YouTube.

The thing is, TV and movies help, too, especially with the bigger social picture and his ongoing issues with rigidity and anxiety. The Diary of a Wimpy Kid movies and books, for example, maybe play to his current obsession with potty talk than I'd like (OMG THE MOTHERFUCKING IRONY), but have completely changed the way he treats his friends, and especially Ezra. "I'm not a mean brother like Rodrick," he says. "I'm a nice brother. I'm a friend brother."

The various iterations of Star Trek -- with different costumes and ship details and characters and hell, even actors -- have been hugely helpful when he's confronted with something being "different" or "not normal." Before that, Star Wars and Harry Potter and The Wizard of Oz taught him how to use his imagination.

And Kung Fu Panda 2, of all things, gave us the phrase "inner peace" as an effective code for "rest your body" or "holy sensory freakout child, please calm dowwwwwwn." 

And the auditory recall seems to work at school, too, despite how easily distracted he is by...well, EVERYTHING. The wiggly leg on his chair. The edge of his shirt sleeves. That other kid who is in time out for saying Something That Sounds A Lot Like "Damage." Anything and everything in the classroom that may have been moved from its usual location. The sound his mouth makes when he blows air out like this or like that.

Despite all the distractions, he's learning. He's reading. He's writing. He's drawing elaborate re-tellings of his favorite movies comic-book style on the wide sheets of paper we set out on his kindergarten-teacher-recommended Writing Station, up to and including the closing credits. His fine motor skills have never been better, and his teacher even declared his handwriting "beautiful," especially for a kid who only really figured out how to hold a crayon properly a year or so ago. 

He says he hates school, which of course bothers me, but I sort of think that's the point: I roll my eyes at "damage" and "fartle fart" and "pooper diaper" but have a hard-to-resist kneejerk reaction to "I hate school." Why? Why do you hate school? What's wrong? What's happening there? Is it your teacher? The other kids? TELL ME SO I CAN FIX IT. I CAN CALL ANOTHER IEP MEETING AND FIX IT.

I should know by now it doesn't exactly work like that. Sure, there are things about Noah that I could cautiously, inelegantly call "fixed" or "resolved." Things that took years of therapy and effort and money. And other things that simply faded away with a little extra time: maturity on his part, understanding and creative thinking on mine. And other, other things that found unlikely, almost sudden solutions: A curved exit ramp, Star Wars, karate or sometimes just actual, real-life magic. 

And of course there are still other things. Big things, subtle things, question-marky-let's-keep-our-eye-on-that things. The IEP helps with some of those things, along with OT and diet and a truckload of patience, so we keep chugging along and showing up and doing everything we possibly can to help, to guide, to aid.

But not to "fix."

Because you can't fix something that isn't broken. And my child is not, and never has been, broken. 

 

The Road To Here

I woke up this morning to discover that a big giant kid crept in and ate Noah up last night.

I was pretty annoyed, so I walked him to the neighborhood bus stop and sent him off to school with a bunch of other big kids. Whatever.

***

The other parents snapped pictures as their kids lined up and boarded the bus. I just stood there. I'd abandoned my camera on our front step because Noah was having a hard morning and me standing around trying to capture the preshus memories of childhood rites of passage was clearly NOT HELPING. He didn't want to get out of bed, he didn't want to get dressed, he didn't want a shirt with too many buttons and he didn't want breakfast and he CERTAINLY didn't want to walk to the bus stop. 

But of course the minute we rounded the corner and he spotted other kids at the bus stop his anxiety melted. He cheerfully climbed on the bus and stopped mid-step to turn around and give me the most picture-perfect first-day-of-school wave in the HISTORY of first-day-of-school waves. 

I waved back. I bit my lip. I turned around and walked home. 

Noah will spend part of his day in the mainstream kindergarten classroom. Mostly the "easy" stuff like homeroom, lunch, art, recess. Close to 30 kids with one teacher. (Who, okay, is a dude. And Ezra's preschool teacher [he starts next week] is a dude. Lots of dudes all of a sudden!) The rest of the day he'll be in a smaller special education class. He'll get one-on-one OT once a week and other support services as-needed for issues related to attention, behavior, anxiety, sensory stuff. It's all good. We're extremely pleased and are hoping for a mostly-smooth year. We're also continuing to take Noah to private services every week to plug the holes in his IEP, because we still aren't that idealistic. Ain't our first rodeo, and all.

I get asked from time to time about the whole blogging-about-Noah thing, and it's a totally fair question. (Provided it's asked in a way that doesn't assume 1) that it's something that has NEVER EVER OCCURRED TO ME TO THINK ABOUT, and 2) that there's only one right answer, and that it is not the one I've come up with.) 

Here's the thing: Yes, I suppose it is possible that Noah's classmates might one day read this blog and learn that he experienced developmental delays. It is possible. Likely? I dunno. I imagine by the time they're of the age where they're Googling each other and allowed to visit random blogs with R-rated langauge unsupervised, Noah will have his own online presence that will supercede this one in the search results, or this blog will be offline or entries will have been removed (I do that, sneakily like, sometimes) and hey, if kids really want to spend hours and hours tracking down an unformatted cache of overwrought ramblings from somebody's boring old MOM on Wayback Machine, well...Noah has my blessing to mock the SHIT out of them right back. 

(I also own the possibility that any of my children might one day look at me and say, "Wow, I really wish you hadn't done that," about blogging or posting pictures or hell, any number of parenting choices we make that might, in hindsight, suck.)

But the fact is, other kids don't need to do all that much to figure out some of the things I've shared here, if they want to. They just need an older sibling with a yearbook, because Noah's name and picture have been in there for the past two years, as part of the district's preschool program. 

And they'll see him leave the classroom every day. That part worried me, as hypocritical as that probably sounds.

I asked the special education teacher about it on Friday: Do the other kids...notice? Do they ask? Do they figure it out? 

No, she assured me. Just about every kid gets "pulled out" at some point during the day or week. There's a large ESOL population and those kids go to their own classroom too. Some kids need handwriting help, or speech therapy for lisps or stutters. Others go to special reading groups -- both remedial and gifted. Some kids see the school pyschologist, some get tutoring, and all of this happens in mysterious "other" rooms than the homerooms, so no one knows why anyone is leaving. When everyone is special...no one is. Huh.

"Mostly, the kids who stay behind think the ones who leave are lucky," she said. 

And really, Noah IS lucky. He has an amazing barrage of services being made available to him, even in an age of crazy district budget cuts and school overcrowding. He has received great services from this school already, in addition to all the private therapy and camps and whatnot. 

And he is lucky because once upon a time, his mother poured her heart out to the Internet when she feared her baby might be speech delayed. And when she found out that he was. And when she first heard of "Sensory Processing Disorder" and "Pervasive Developmental Disorder - Not Otherwise Specified" and Asperger's and dyspraxia and ADHD and any number of acronyms and diagnosis codes that have shown up in paperwork or conversations. 

He is lucky because when I did that, people listened. And they helped. They left comments and emails and sent me book and website recommendations and phone numbers and taught me how to be his advocate and let me cry on their shoulders both virtually and in real life. They taught me how to write social stories and that visual schedules help and have you talked to the miracle workers at The Treatment & Learning Centers? They donated money and a kick in the pants when I was stressed and hesitant about an insanely expensive private school tuition bill. They told me I would never, ever regret spending that money and they were 100% right. They taught me not to be afraid or ashamed, but let me know that it was okay to feel that way sometimes.

You listened. You shared. You taught. You helped.

Thank you.

I don't really feel compelled to share the daily ups and downs of raising a challenging child quite the way I used to, when Noah was little and baffling and I felt so lost and overwhelmed all the time. He's big and still baffling but...we got this. More or less. Some days are better than others, just like always. We're trying some new things and re-introducing some old things that stopped working so well but seem to help again but mostly we just...enjoy being around our boy. Who enjoys going places and doing things except for the places and things that he doesn't. We just have to try to keep it all straight, and then be prepared when he changes the rules on us again. No biggie. 

But, you know. I'll still keep you posted. Don't worry. 

In the meantime, though, one small favor: If your child comes home from school and tells you about how some kids talk funny or can't sit still or can't keep quiet or don't like to be touched and those kids get pulled out of the classroom during math and reading and science and asks you where do those kids go? And why? 

Tell them that gee, you can't say for sure. But those kids sound pretty lucky. 

Little Fish

Noah spent four weeks at a OT/social skills camp this summer, and then we set him loose for two weeks at the YMCA's swim camp. It was our first crack at mainstream program in over three years. It ended on Friday.

He received a certificate for "Honesty." Which as far as I can gather he earned mostly because 1) everybody got one, and 2) whenever he got in trouble, it never occurred to him to lie about it. 

But he did it. He made it through all 10 days of camp. We signed one incident report for hitting and one for towel-whacking, and by the time the kicking happened...well, his counselor went easy on him and skipped the written report, which spared him from getting kicked out on the third-to-last day. We explained and reminded and begged him each morning to keep his hands to himself, to use words instead, come on, dude, you know this. We had to remind him to respond when other campers said hello, we had to provide the teenaged CITs with strategies to help him transition without tantrums or play competitive games without rigid frustration, and we had to face the hard fact that none of this is easy for him. Still. Not yet. 

But he did it. He learned to swim underwater.  He went down a waterslide. He swam in the deep end. He gained a pound of strong, solid muscle. He hung upside down from the monkey bars. He lost his first tooth at the lunch table. He learned that sticking both your fingers in your nose at the same time is HILARIOUS. 

I'm really proud of him, you guys.