"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. 

Humble Pride

There's nothing quite like those moments -- those rare public moments when the child you've spent years of your life raising as a kind, empathetic and polite human being opens his mouth...and says the most impulsive, selfish and socially tone-deaf thing he could possibly come up with. In front of God, everybody and at least 50 other adults with video cameras.

So I left a little anecdote out of my entry about Noah's belt test. Because...well, it wasn't exactly the sort of story I felt deserved to be preserved for posterity. At least...not at first. At first it was one of those "let's forget THAT ever happened" stories.

So Noah was waiting for his turn to break his board. It's the last task of the test, the big moment that signals your successful graduation to the next belt level, the part where everybody claps and cheers for you, and not to mention, is completely fucking awesome, because you get to break a damn board with your fist. 

But the little girl ahead of Noah was not getting that completely awesome moment, because she could not break her board, no matter how many times she tried. The instructor switched boards, had her practice over and over again, but the board would not split. They quickly abandoned the punching idea and had her try an easier stomp kick move. But the board would not split. 

The instructors continued to cheer her on, as did the entire audience of parents, grandparents and siblings -- you know, ANYTHING to keep the poor thing from getting upset or embarrassed during a moment that is solely intended to be a self-confidence booster, as I've always suspected that those balsa wood boards get a secondary helpful bit of snapping pressure from the instructors. 

Noah sat silently during this, growing slightly more impatient with every failed attempt the little girl made. Finally, he could take no more:

"SHE'S NEVER GOING TO BREAK HER BOARD!" he announced. Loudly. Very, very loudly.

There are a few sounds that I will never, ever forget, dear readers: The sound my car made during a violent head-on collision in high school, the sound of my newborn babies' cries for the first time...and the sound of every other person in that room making the same horrified and dismayed "OHHHNOOOOOOO!" sort of gasp.

Noah was quickly admonished by an instructor and we, the audience, were ordered to cheer for the little girl even louder. Jason and I looked at each other, completely mirroring the other's embarrassment and desire for the floor to open up and swallow us whole, because yeeeeah.

That's my kid, right there.

 The one that EVERY OTHER PERSON IN THIS ROOM is thinking, "oh God, I'm glad that wasn't my kid."

Argh. Kids. Five-year-olds. Whattaya gonna do, right? 

Well, if you're Jason, you spend a nice chunk of your afternoon assembling an extremely complicated Harry Potter Lego set while talking to your kid about why that wasn't a nice thing to say, how that probably hurt that little girl's feelings, and what "encouragement" means and why it's important, and suggesting that maybe an apology is in order, the next time that little girl comes to karate class.

But you might also probably feel like everything you said went in one ear and out the other, cuz LEGOS LEGOS LEGOS.

And if you're me, you'll completely forget to bring the topic up again and prompt your kid about that outstanding apology while driving to karate class a few days later. Until you watch the little girl in question arrive late and take her spot directly behind your kid in line, like, ooohhhhhhhhhrightthat. 

But if your kid is Noah, you will also watch him immediately turn around and face the little girl. And you will hear him, clear as day, say, "I'm sorry I said you couldn't break your board. I'm sorry you were having a hard time. But you did really, really great and I'm happy you got your yellow belt too."

And you will realize you are sitting next to the little girl's mom. And you will see the corners of her mouth turn up in a charmed sort of smile. And you will see the instructor's face similarly melt, as he turns to your child and thanks him for being such a gentleman and a good friend, and tells him he just earned himself an extra raffle/prize ticket for a random act of kindness. 

And then you will watch your kid earn a second ticket for winning that day's special "flying kick" competition, expertly performing a new double-leg jump-kick thing that requires all sorts of gross motor skills and coordination and crossing the midline (and lands 90% of his classmates on their butts), and you will think, "That's my kid. That's MY kid. That's my amazing, unbelievable kid."

Apple Store of My Eye

I had to ask what, exactly, a "word retrieval disorder" meant, when we met with the child psychologist to go over the action-packed, 25-page report on Noah's evaluation. I understood most of what was in there -- ADHD, auditory processing, some too-early-to-tell red flags for dyslexia for us to "keep an eye on" -- but the word retrieval bit was a new one. 

Was it like apraxia? I asked.

No, she said. That's an inability to form words. This is more about plucking the right word from your brain soup. Basically having it right there on the tip of your tongue, but unable to remember it, or only coming up with words that are similar in concept, but not quite right. 

For example: saying shovel when you mean hammer, bicycle for motorcycle, or in a unique-to-Noah coping mechanism the psychologist noted, expanding a simple sentence to include a ton of extra, early "filler" words, thus buying himself more time to come up with the more difficult verbs and nouns that would come later. 

That was really fascinating to see, she said. He's already very aware of what's difficult for him, and is coming up with his own accomodations in lot of those areas. That's a very, very good thing. 

***

The suggested school-based accomodations for a word retrieval problem include providing Noah with a "word bank" to choose from during fill-in-the-blank tests, or allow him to write expanded responses instead of counting on him to remember a single specific word, and to use lots of mnemonic devices and categorization exercises to help with his word-memory skills. 

I couldn't help but think that man, we are getting crazy obscure here, with the stuff you can now officially label as a "disorder." I mean, really:

PROBLEMS WITH WORD RETRIEVAL! CAPS LOCK COMPULSION! PUNCTUATION DEFICIT DISORDER! I HAVE ALL OF THESE PLUS WEIRD DOUBLE-JOINTED RING FINGERS. 

***

Last night, after dinner, Jason suggested we all head to the Apple store to check out their selection of educational games, to see if they included some age-appropriate typing or keyboarding skills. (This was another accomodation the psychologist recommended, to teach Noah to type as a less-frustrating alternative to handwriting.) Noah demanded clarification, probably thinking that we wanted to take him to a fruit store, which would have to be one of the WORST IDEAS EVER, unless we were talking bananas. Did the apple store also have bananas? 

No, we told him. The computer store. The one with the Dora games you like to play. 

Oh, okay, he nodded. I like the computer store.

A few minutes later we hadn't left yet, and Noah was getting impatient. 

Are we going to the...

That's as far as he got before his face contorted and the tears started. 

The word! I can't say the word! My voice doesn't remember that word! Naughty voice, why won't you remember!

Then he balled up his fist and started punching himself in the throat. 

Holy shit, I thought. Stop!

Computer, I said, as soothingly as I could. The computer store.

He repeated it and immediately calmed down, taking big deep breaths. I don't like when my voice forgets the words. It makes me angry. 

Of course it does, I said. It's frustrating. Everybody's voice forgets the words sometimes, though. 

We decided to go to the fruit store another time. We went to the playground instead. 

Grasshopper, Part II

Noah has his first karate belt test tomorrow.

A "formality," really, since white and gold belts are still grouped together, skill-wise, in the same class. A "confidence booster," according to the instructor who called me and twisted my arm up out my gut instinct that Noah probably isn't ready and convinced me to turn in the test form (AND OH RIGHT THE $40 FEE) anyway.

"Eight to 10 classes" is all it typically takes to move from a white belt to gold. Noah's attended 12. Every other white belt is taking the test, and the next opportunity to move up isn't until three months from now. Okay! Okay. Fine. 

And then: "Hmm, I dunno" from a different instructor on Monday, when I told him Noah was signed up. The attention issues, the inability to focus or look instructors in the eye, the non-stop wiggling and bouncing, all of it could, in fact, pose a little bit of a problem. He can do all the required moves at home, and one-on-one with an instructor when we've requested a bit of extra help. But the belt test isn't at home, or one-on-one, or even really, about the karate moves themselves. The first belt test is about self-control in the class setting. 

Fucking great. 

"Sometimes a belt is something you grow into," the instructor helpfully went on. In other words, no, he's not really ready, but you know, maybe we can toss the poor kid a golden-colored bone and then hope it all sorts itself out with a few more classes. 

Noah is so, so excited about the possibility of a new belt. 

I am ready to throw the hell up. 

Once upon a time, I'm sure I had an Opinion about kids and sports and everybody getting medals just for showing up. About parents wigging out because their preshus spechul snowflakes weren't automatically rewarded with success and straight-A's. About anyone who had a laundry list of "he can't help it" style excuses for their kid's less-than-awesome behavior (none of which had anything to do with their own parenting, oh noooo). About anyone who tried to shelter their children from the concept of failure of any kind. 

Maybe I still do, to a certain degree, but right now: Oh please, please, please don't let my baby's little heart get broken tomorrow. 

From the Rooftops

The thing, with Noah, is that his victories, however small, are so hard-fought for. And harder won. Little things like preschool, karate class, swim lessons, riding a bike, talking to another child or simply using an idiom or bit of slang correctly are huge for him, and for us to witness. He is playing a constant game of catch up. 

And we are his cheerleaders, celebrating every baby step and breakthrough, screaming from the rooftops. 

And then there's Ezra. 

Things come easily for Ezra. What once was a sigh of guilty relief over his "typicalness" is now a gasp of wonder at all the things he can do already, at his seeming bottomless well of innate talents and abilities. 

He doesn't just talk. HE TALKS. Full sentences. Every word he hears he immediately absorbs and starts to use. He talks about things he sees and thinks and did earlier that day and would like to do tomorrow Nouns, verbs, abstract concepts and feelings and scenarios playfully pulled from his imagination. He asks questions, he wants to know what and why and when and how come, and he ponders your answers with a seriousness in his eyes that looks so out of place right above his chubby baby cheeks. I might not catch every word of it -- his two-year-old tongue is not always up to his much-older-than-that vocabulary -- but I understand more than enough. We have conversations.  

He is social and affectionate. Strong-willed and determined. He will not let fear or failure stand in his way of trying new things. "Too young, too small, too little" mean nothing to him in his furious quest to master all big-kid things. The self-critical, perfectionist streak I admittedly passed on to his older brother seems to have skipped over Ezra completely, replaced with boundless optimism and a refusal to quit trying until he gets something right. 

Not that he even needs to try that hard, that often. He can pedal a bike, kick a ball, hold a crayon, use a spoon, run and jump and climb and balance. He can count to 12 and name all his shapes and remember EVERYTHING after a single viewing, hearing or doing. He's funny and he knows it, irresistably naughty and mischeiveous and he knows a hug and a kiss will melt any and all of my defences. "Thank you you're welcome," he says, after offering me some pretend pasta from his pretend picnic spread.

He is the biggest little person I've ever met in such a compact, cuddly package. 

He followed Noah to karate and watched from the sidelines, once, then rushed in to demostrate a perfectly mimicked forward kick at the target. The teacher's eyes grew wide. "Wow. He's a natural," he said, genuinely impressed.

"Hi-YAH!" Ezra said. Then he put his arms down and bowed. HE BOWED. HOW DID HE KNOW TO BOW?

I worry. I worry that it will be hard for Noah to see his little brother naturally excel at the things he struggles with. And God, aren't enough things hard enough for him, already? Ezra, of course, idolizes Noah. Worships the ground he builds Lego castles on. They bicker and argue, but things only get really heated when Noah is doing something that Ezra can't, or simply can't yet. I worry that those roles are already getting reversed.  

So I say things like, "Noah is soooo talented musically, you know, he has perfect pitch and already makes up his own songs and if we can just get his fine motor skills up where they need to be I bet we can really set him loose on a piano and..."

Ezra sings loud and terribly off-key, you see. And then I worry even more, because I know what I'm doing, right there, and it's awful and not fair, that my pride in my second child gets colored by concerns for my first. 

Oh Ezra, you are so uniquely, breathtakingly amazing. I hope I tell you that enough. You blow my heart up every day with pride and laughter and I love you so, so crazy much.

I'm your cheerleader too, and you're never going to get rid of me embarassing you from the sidelines of whatever thing you choose to do, because I already know you'll be the greatest and most brilliant boy to ever attempt whatever that thing you choose to do is. 

Grasshopper

Noah went to his very first karate class yesterday.

Long-time readers: Yeah. You know the deal. You know that this was kind of a big step.

Newer peeps: There's no way to nicely sum up three-plus years of developmental delays, meltdowns, evaluations, diagnoses, successes, failures, therapy, IEP meetings and God knows what else in a sentence or two, except to say that yeah. This was kind of big step. 

After our success with the homegrown hardscrabble soccer practices, we started wondering what other organized activities Noah was ready for. Soccer is on hold until the spring, since we could no longer consistently track down indoor venues and the constant switching of locations was driving the kids a bit batty. 

Jason suggested karate, mostly because Jason always, ALWAYS wanted to learn karate as a kid but Jason's parents wouldn't ever let Jason learn karate and yes, sometimes parenthood is little more than an ongoing experiment in Surrogate Childhood Wish Fulfillment. He then let Noah watch the original Karate Kid movie.

(Not only was karate completely off the table for me as a kid [GIRLS DID BALLET, YOU KNOW] [P.S. I HATED BALLET], I wasn't even allowed to see the Karate Kid movie. So as I watched it for the first time with Noah, I was sucked into some crazy mothering timewarp wormhole where I became the asshole who had to sit there questioning the appropriateness of the movie choice, especially since the main takeaway lesson Noah seemed to pick up on was that kicking people's knees means YOU WIN.)

But, the movie cemented it. Noah wanted to learn karate. Like, immediately. 

The place we took him to starts off with a short, private introductory lesson-slash-evaluation session, where an instructor teaches your child a couple basic stances and drills and sees if there's really an interest in karate (versus, you know, chucking ninja stars at thine enemies and shit). We'd prepared Noah for the fact that there wouldn't be other kids there at first, but chose the unfortunate wording of "If you do a good job and listen to the teacher, you can go to a real karate class afterwards."

During the private session, Noah was a ball of trembling, vibrating excitement. He couldn't stand still. He wiggled and jumped and wanted to talk the whole time.  He had problem keeping eye contact and was easily distracted by other people walking around or his own reflection in the mirror.

Still, though, the interest and motivation was obviously there. He was just so freaking EXCITED. He mimicked the stances and did some blocks and kicks and never once insisted on busting out his perfected-at-home Ralph-Macchio-crane pose instead of standing at attention. He earnestly promised to practice self-control, first-time listening, and never use karate on friends, family or pets, and I never realized that martial arts could be so damn adorable. 

(Plus, I highly, HIGHLY doubt anyone with a valid credit card actually gets turned down for white-belt preschooler karate. Just a hunch, though.)

We went into the office to get him officially signed and suited up for the class. Noah sat on my lap and suddenly we realized his eyes were red and brimming with tears.

"I didn't do a good job," he said. "I can't do real karate now."

HOLY SHIT. WHAT. 

Well! Best parents ever, right? Oh my God. 

Noah, you did a great job. You can absolutely do real karate now. 

(Not pictured: One poor, hysterically jealous little brother sobbing just beyond the glass door because he totally mimicked everything they taught Noah and showed off a great forward kick and the teacher said he was a natural but you have to be three years old for a class and it's not fair and you guys are mean and the worst parents ever.)

(Totally pictured: Pride, child having time of his life, money well spent.)

Slow Burn

Noah's fever spiked last night -- not high enough to necessitate a trip to the ER or anything, just one of those HOT. DAMN. moments when you stare at the thermometer and struggle to hold on to everything you know about small children's resilient little bodies and their tendency to run 102+ degree fevers for no damn good reason.

We dosed him up with Tylenol and I hovered around his red-hot presence anxiously, obsessively rubbing his back and his hair, convinced that we were, in fact, going to end up at the ER later and that it was pneumonia or something equally horrible, and wondering who the HELL left me in charge of this small, helpless human being? And the one in the next room? And the one that's not even born yet?

Dear God, why didn't we just stop with the damn CAT while we were ahead? 

***

So I mentioned that kindergarten transition meeting thing yesterday. Kindergarten transitioning is a Big Honking Deal for the kids in the district's special education preschool program, obviously. It involves weeks of observations by a whole team of people, preliminary plans and pre-plans and planning to plan, then an initial "invitation" to the parents to go and observe a couple of the district's continuation-of-services options -- basically, whatever options the team is considering as appropriate for your specific child. 

We were invited to visit two different options: Our school's "regular" kindergarten classroom and...well, the other one. The speshul one. It's called LAD -- Learning & Academic Disabilities, though it's a far cry from the type of remedial special education classroom that you might be tempted to picture, a la Bart Simpson's "Leg Up Program" with the kids who start fires and fell off the jungle gym or just moved here from Can-ah-da, eh? 

Kids in LAD -- at our particular school, I've since found out that the program is different at pretty much every location across the county, like THAT'S not a crapshoot or anything -- spend 50% of their day with their LAD peers, usually the more academic parts of the day. Small class size, extra paraeducator support, any sensory accommodations they may need, transition help, and of course, time for any individual speech/language or occupational therapy services their IEP may include.

The other portion of the day is spent being co-taught with the "typical" kindergartners for stuff like PE and art and music and storytime, the "easier" blocks of the day, so they can get the critical social pieces of kindergarten without being impeded academically because they've just been tossed into a class of 25+ kids with one teacher and spend the entire day in an overwhelmed sensory fit, wandering around the room and singing the Star Wars theme over and over and over again while insisting that their handwriting practice sheet is "the yellow letters" and making it "crawl" in front of their face and wait...was I talking about the kids in general, or just mine?

(I should note, for the sake of UNFLAILINGLY BORING COMPLETENESS, that even if Noah was put in the typical classroom, he'd certainly still receive "resource services," like OT for handwriting help, but it sounds like there wouldn't really be any in-class support for him when it comes to his many, many other stubborn little quirks.)

(Oh! And if Noah WAS put in the LAD classroom, because it's at our home school [something that's actually on the usual side, since not every school has it and thus other kids must attend school further away], Noah could ride the "neighborhood" bus instead of the "special ed" bus. AND if, say, it was decided that by second grade or so, that he no longer needed to be in LAD, he'd still get to stay at the same school, with kids he knows and has spent time with. Other kids typically get booted back to their home school at that point to essentially start over. All in all, it looks like we really didn't do too shabbily when it came to buying this particular house in this particular neighborhood, even if the decision felt like we just panicked because our condo buyers wanted us OUT and we had no where to go so QUICK, THIS HOUSE IS FINE, WHATEVER, WE'LL TAKE IT, GAAAAAH.) 

So next week, we go and observe these two classrooms. And then we wait until APRIL for our IEP meeting, where the team will presumably make their recommendation, albeit with input from us (supposedly) and from Noah's private occupational therapist, who will also be attending the meeting on his behalf. 

A lot of the other parents are using all this hurry-up-and-wait time to tour and apply to private schools, just in case they are unhappy with the IEP team's recommendation. Hearing them discuss all the expensive private options in the area (and the multi-stage interview-and-IQ-test heavy application process) always makes me feel a bit panicky, because...well, we AREN'T considering any private schools. Are we...wrong? 

I LIKE our public school, and I LIKE the way they've provided for Noah so far. And more importantly, I BELIEVE they have the right kindergarten environment for him, and I BELIEVE that they will do the right thing for him and put him in it. And if not at first, then they will after I get done with my own personal 20-minute slide presentation on WHY YOU WILL LISTEN TO EVERY GODDAMN WORD I SAY, RAWR. 

But still, of course, I worry. I worry that our classroom observations will reveal some horrible unforeseen something-or-other that I never considered, or that our IEP meeting will go horribly awry, that I'm once again completely over- or underestimating the whole system and process and oh God, maybe even poor Noah himself, because he can't tell us what he'll really need for kindergarten next year. (Other than a Star Wars lunchbox, I'm guessing.)

Who the HELL left us in charge of this stuff, honestly? 

***

Last night, about an hour after the Tylenol, Noah's temperature was down to a cool and refreshing 98.3. And it stayed down. 

He's fine. We all are.