Dante's Eardrum

At exactly 8 pm last night, I left my comfortable suburban existence and entered the 12th circle of hell. It started with SOMEONE I WON'T SAY WHO I BET YOU CAN GUESS taking a spectacularly large dump on the bathroom floor. Also, my foot. And then again in the bathtub, which SOMEONE ELSE WHO WAS ALSO IN THE BATHTUB found to be hilarrrrrious. I did not, and responded to their collective gleeful cackles with the very-useful, very-in-charge-of-the-situation admonishment of "STOP BEING SO GROSS!"

After all of that, and a stupid decision to stay up way too late because I suddenly and inexplicably care (AND CARE DEEPLY) about Conan O'Brien, Noah started screaming exactly 15 minutes after we fell asleep. First he said it was his mouth, so we assumed he bit his tongue and shuffled him back to bed without much sympathy. Fifteen minutes after that, we decided maybe he meant his throat, and since he'd had a cold over the weekend, we dosed him with some medicine that we're probably not supposed to dose him with, but those people who say those medicines don't work and a tablespoon of honey works just as well blah blah blah vaporizer plug-ins are welcome to suck on this here pile of snotty tissues.

Fifteen minutes after THAT (translation: once we could not give him additional, more-suitable medicine) he told us it was actually his ear. Oh, his ear. Oh, the pain. THE SCREAMING. He's only had a small handful of ear infections -- about once a year, really -- but he's never been so goddamned enraged by one before. (I had them ALL THE TIME as a kid before getting tubes in kindergarten, and if I reacted that strongly every time I am amazed my parents did not sell me to the gypsies sometime in preschool.)

I hate these kinds of nights, for all the obvious reasons, but mostly because I feel like such a MEAN PERSON: my child is clearly in incredible pain that I can do little about (except think back to all those times I contemplated those earache relief/numbing drops at the drugstore and did. not. buy. them.), and mostly I'm just wishing he would GO BACK TO SLEEP ALREADY, I'M SO TIRED. At one point, I guess in a preschool-logic attempt to get rid of the source of the pain, he opened his bedroom door and hurled his current weird-attachment-object-du-jour (an Elmo puppet book) out into the hallway. "YOU ARE NOT MY FRIEND ANYMORE, ELMO!" he sobbed before climbing back into bed to writhe some more.

Later he decided he wanted to sleep on the couch, a request I blearily obliged, especially since I figured I might be able to sleep through some of his more low-level whining and moaning. (See: Person, Mean, Bad.) I got a brief catnap before the screaming amped up again; when I went downstairs to retrieve him he was sitting in the middle of the coffee table and wailing.

Jason and I took turns attempting to comfort him, offering whatever folksy remedies we could think of, counting the hours before we could safely dope him up with hardcore pain medication again (only to find that about 75% of the stuff we had on hand expired two years ago, niiiiiiice). I finally gave up on ever returning to bed and just stayed with him. He would drift off to sleep for about 10 or 15 minutes before the pressure in his ear amped up again and he'd wake up crying, but as long as I was there he wouldn't escalate to full-on screaming. He kept head-butting me all night, in search of the hardest, firmest part of my body to rest his ear against (sadly, he found few acceptable options), and at one point pressed his ear directly against mine, and I could HEAR the horrible fluid thumping around in there. I did not sleep again until...oh...7:15. Which was about 15 minutes before Ezra woke up (covered in snot, might I add), and it was time to start calling schools and bus depots and pediatricians and put a bra on before the babysitter arrived for her second day on the job. Here are my children! And their multiple strains of disease! I'm so happy you're here so I can get work and writing done and be a professional something somethingzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzomg.

We're headed to the doctor momentarily. He is now, of course, totally fine, and absolutely delighted to stay home from school and play with his new favorite person ever. He's even patched things up with poor Elmo. I would like someone to shoot me in the face. With coffee. Or bullets. Either one.

Jedi Master

First, though: You know you're in for an interesting conversation with your child's speech pathologist when she starts out by saying, "Yeah. So this might sound weird, but the other day I was at Babble.com and..."

Yesterday was a mini-parental-update day at Noah's private school. I don't know what else to call it. I stick around for an extra half hour after school and meet with all of the various teachers and therapists (last count we were up to a baker's goddamn dozen, I think) and discuss Noah's progress at school and at home. But we don't sit down for it. And no one takes notes. So it doesn't feel like a real thing. I completely forgot about yesterday's and didn't even take my coat off until the third therapist came over to talk, which is when it finally dawned on me that oh! Right! That's today. The mini-thing. Okay. 

Noah's progress is, in a word, spectacular.  A little over three months into the program (it's the DIR/Floortime model, for the special ed geeks out there) and they're all thrilled at the improvements they've already seen. They want to throw everything they've got at him -- listening therapy, music therapy, more speech -- because he responds so well, because he's *right there* and *so close* and it's *allsogreat.* This time last year we were still reeling in the wake of his teacher's not-very-veiled threats of expulsion. This year, everyone loves him. He's a sponge, a positive spirit. He is loving, he is kind, he is so very bright.

I've been carefully and cautiously celebrating the little things: fingerpainting, riding a bike, Halloween costumes, the loop, the very first time he ever looked at me and asked "why?" (last week. LAST WEEK.), the very first time he zipped up his winter coat all by himself (today. TODAY.).  And yet I still feel like I missed something, particularly in this past month. I can count on one hand the number of real, honest-to-God kill-me level of fits...yet can't put a finger on exactly when the good days started to outnumber the bad, and at such an uneven ratio.

He digs around in his backpack after school, eager to show off his latest project: N O A H spells Noah, Mommy.

He brings me elaborate Lego creations that no longer resemble the ones he once saw on the box: Look what I made, Mommy.

He plays more like a kid than a ruthless engineer, the last stand between order and chaos in case someone puts a blue block next to a yellow block instead of the RED BLOCK RED BLOCK. There is imagination, purpose, even the occasional good guy and bad guy. I am the Mommy Airplane with a broken wing, he is the Baby Airplane who calls the Compliceman to come and bring me a Band-Aid. A weirdly-shaped office building with an ugly radio antenna on the roof becomes mysterious and magical: Look at that pyramid, Mommy! There are mummies inside that pyramid, Mommy.

He tells me about his friends, his teachers, what he did that day. What they had for snack and who got in trouble on the bus. He tells me about the blue songs and the red songs and how the Christmas tree is "spicy" and that he can't eat a certain food because it's too much like "the ocean" and that shade of orange is too "rough" and every day we get a clearer picture of the nonstop sensory assault he faces and what the world looks and sounds and tastes and feels like for him: This song is yellow, but also kind of green, Mommy.

When he gets overwhelmed and overstimulated, he no longer screams or lashes out or kicks. He gives his body a good head-to-toe wiggle instead and starts everything over. Sure, it looks a little strange, but four-year-olds are a little strange, and it's a pretty effective reset button -- and one that he seemingly came up with on his own, his very first self-discovered coping mechanism: I shaking the itch out, Mommy.  

Everyday he is more "in" than "out," his teachers say. Everyday the other children in the class appear more foreign to me, more difficult than my own, and I am acutely aware that of all of them, Noah's chances for mainstreaming are much, much higher than theirs. 

He is still delayed, of course. Just because he finally asks "why" questions now doesn't mean we're allowed to ignore how long it took him to get to that point. When you teeter on the barest edge of "pervasive" there is always something else to worry about. He still has a very hard time interacting with children, with dealing with the inevitable, unpredictable aspects of daily life. He cannot use a spoon or a fork, or unbutton his shirt, or hold a crayon correctly, or...or...

He throws his arms around me a hundred times a day: I love you, Mommy.

Why God Invented Photo Cropping

In what is likely little more than further proof that I Do Not Understand Twitter, an entry about our holiday card has suddenly developed a third or fourth life over there, thanks to accounts that seem wholly dedicated to tweeting about...paper goods. Ordered some business cards? Party invites? Cocktail napkins? Put that shit on Twitter, you'll be viral in no time.

Likewise, to further prove that I am nothing but an obedient and impressionable blog monkey, I figured I might as well post the outtakes from that photo session, just so everyone can see what a big fat sham the final result actually was:

Ezra: Red Flannel Steel!

Noah: CHEDDDD....

 

Noah: ...AAARRRRRR

Ezra: HAAAAAAAAAA

 

Noah: Invisible Pint of Invisible Beer, About To Fall Off Invisible Barstool

Ezra: Invisible Baby Shot Glass

Noah: LOOK AT ME NOT SITTING STILL

Ezra: Is Jelus

Noah: Perfect Gymboree Mannequin

Ezra: Is Staring At Rocks

Both Of Them: Ready For Their Canadian Buddy Stoner Comedy Film

Both Of Them: Wait, You're Gonna Mail This To Who? Eeeeee.

 

Noah: My Life Is Hard And Full Of Many Injustices

Ezra: I Ate A Bug!

Amy: I think if I crop out Ezra's helpless dangling legs I could make the stranglehold look a bit more affectionate.

Jason: Tell me again why we can't just send out something from Hallmark?

Merry Merry

 

The Loop

The Hardest Part, at least from a day-to-day basis, the rigid, inflexible thinking. Things that must be done the way they've been done before. No variation, no deviation, from morning (and the order that breakfast items get set on the table) to night (pants come off first but socks come off last and books must be read while sitting on the right side of the bed RIGHT SIDE RIGHT SIDE!). Routines become rituals and the rituals are a religion.

It's all CONNECTED, of course, we're told. I fret about OCD but am assured that no, it's SPD. Dyspraxia is a motor-planning disorder, but when you add in tactile and auditory hypersensitivity and fine and gross motor delays and receptive and expressive and pragmatic language delays and whatever-the-fuck else we've been diagnosed with at some point or another...well, you've got a child who can't sequence day-to-day problems, or recognize patterns in events and behavior, who can't reason things out to their logical conclusion, who doesn't understand the order of the world and other people and basically exists in a tensed-up state, minutes away from fight-or-flight mode at all times.

Okay, not at all times. But just enough for it to feel that way some days. Some little inconsequential details doesn't go as planned and a mental wire gets tripped. He goes from a happy, smiling chattering little boy to...well, something else. Something I'm getting weary of describing, because I still can't seem to get it right. Please to reference EVERY OTHER POST EVER.

So lately we (with help and guidance from his teachers and therapists) have been working hard on improving Noah's problem-solving and abstract-thinking skills. You do this, in part, by deliberately creating problems and then pretending to be a complete moron.

Problem One: Oh no! You need to get dressed for school and Mommy put on your bathing suit! And now she's trying to put your socks on your hands! And your underwear on your head!

Solution: STUPID MOMMY.

Problem Two: You come downstairs for breakfast but your chair isn't at the table. It's in the middle of the kitchen. When you say you want your chair at the table, Mommy pushes it in the wrong direction.

Solution: STUPID, GOOD-FOR-NOTHING MOMMY.

Problem Three: You get permission to go play in the basement, but the baby gate is closed. Mommy suddenly can't get it open, insists on making wild dramatic gestures about WHATEVER SHALL WE DOOOOO in the general direction of a nearby stepstool. IT'S LIKE WE NEED A TOOL OF SOME KIND. HMMM!

Solution: Ask to watch TV instead, because DAMN, WOMAN.

And...so on and so forth.

It's working, we think. Not all the time, but in past couple weeks we've managed to get him to work and reason through a couple change-ups and "why/how come" questions. A good start, but nothing that seemed to curb the Big Bad Reactions to a triggering event.

One such triggering event is, and has always been, taking the alternate way out of our neighborhood. Our house is on the edge of a street that loops around a couple of other houses, kind of like a cul-de-sac but not. But weird. It's like whoever built this development was legally required to toss up some affordable townhouses among the gigantic single-family homes, but sure as hell wasn't going to put them where anyone would actually have to look at them. Thus, we have two ways out.

 

Obviously, the preferred exit is shorter, but quite often gets blocked by landscaping trucks, extra cars that simply don't fit into two- or three-car garages, I mean, MY LANDS, and...I don't know. Piano-and-Ming-vase delivery trucks. So it's sometimes a little easier to just go around the other way.

Except that Noah always, ALWAYS loses his shit when we go that way. It's takes all of three seconds to end up exactly where we would end up ANYWAY, but in three seconds he can manage to completely lose it. He screams and kicks and pulls his hair and thrashes around in his seat. We actually moved him out of his booster and back into a harnessed carseat thanks to one of these fits, when he managed to turn his body completely around and slide out of the seat belt and onto the floor. 

We tried everything we could think of: we took walks around the block, we took pictures of the road for social stories, we drove that way every day on purpose, we drove that way only when we absolutely had to.

It's a little, silly thing, right? But that's how it is. Even if we can avoid a three-second detour right outside our front door, we may have to take one further down the road because a traffic light is out. We have to turn on a blinking red light instead of green. We have to double-back in the grocery store because we forgot something, order orange juice at Chipotle because they are out of the usual apple, wear this red coat because the blue one is in the wash, and on and on it goes. Explaining, comforting, bargaining, begging, completely unable to get him to understand that it's GOING TO BE OKAY. REALLY. 

Yesterday I had to drive around the way of doom, thanks to a tree-removal crew blocking the corner. Noah freaked. We continued on. We got to the highway exit for his afternoon program, driving under the bridge we'd soon circle back onto.

"Are we going on that bridge?" Noah asked.

"Yep," I said. I thought about leaving it at that, but instead plunged onward with the kind of endless chatter I do, never knowing how much of it he absorbs, plus, who else am I going to talk to? Fucking Twitter?

"See, we drive arooooound this ramp and get on the bridge! Wheeeee! It's like a big loop."

"A loop." Noah repeated.

I was about to define the word for him when he continued.

"A loop. Just like the one outside our house."

And that was it. He caught sight of a nearby school bus and changed the topic. 

***

I drove around the loop again today, on purpose, just to see.

In the backseat, Noah started to protest. Then he tentatively raised his arms over his head.

"WHEEEE!" he said, and he laughed.

Cocoon

On Saturday morning, I wrapped Noah up in two layers of outerwear, a musty-smelling scarf around my head, some vaguely Christmas-y paper around an awkwardly-shaped birthday present and headed out in the snow -- our first of the year -- to attend a preschooler's birthday party. Also our first of the year.

Save for the occasional laid-back house party, we've politely declined all birthday invitations. I know I wrote about Noah and birthday parties -- my memory is suggesting that I very much watered down just how awful our last attempts were, but I simply cannot bring myself to go hunting up the entries to confirm that. Awful. The helpless shock of seeing your child behaving in a way that suggests he has been set on fire, instead of being asked to come sit on a brightly-colored parachute for a minute. The confusion of not knowing what's wrong, the hurt of knowing that whatever it is, your child lacks the verbal skills to tell you about it, and of course: the searing, shameful embarrassment of knowing that all eyes are on you, the parent who cannot control their child. 

We were, not surprisingly, never a very popular playdate choice at Noah's school last year. Except for one family, one mother, one little boy who befriended Noah and I and understood, or who at least attempted to. Her son now attends the Montessori school that we'd also optimistically chosen for Noah before --thankfully -- coming to our senses and swallowing our pride about his real level of need.

And like more friendships than I'd like to admit, we don't talk as much as we should anymore, or get the boys together as much as we should, and it's all my fault because...well, sometimes it hurts to be around Typical Kids. Like being around pregnant bellies when I was trying (and failing) to conceive.

But. She invited us to his birthday party. It was at one of those paint-your-own-pottery places, so no gym equipment, no circle time or song time or multiple transitions. Just sitting and painting.

And so I waffled and debated and fretted both about potential disaster AND selling Noah short -- it's been so long, he's made such progress -- and...DUH, I already told you that we went to the party. (Nice narrative structure there, self.)

Well. It was a disaster. Beyond a disaster. We lasted 20 minutes before Noah had a complete and utter sensory freakout -- imagine something akin to a panic attack crossed with those times when you are almost overcome with the urge to throw some dinner plates at the nearest wall. The 20 minutes prior to the meltdown weren't really much better -- the children were assigned seats and asked to color until everyone arrived and the painting could begin. Noah scribbled halfheartedly with a blue marker while I tried desperately not to look at everyone else's paper. We were surrounded by classmates from last year -- something that I do not doubt contributed to both of our stress levels. They were drawing things. Letters, cats, family members, trees. A younger sibling -- a girl who was probably Ezra's age when I met her -- drew perfect circles and straight lines while Noah held the marker in his fist and banged it into the paper a few times.

"Draw an L, Noah!" I suggested, though as soon as the words were out of my mouth I regretted them. Why not just come out and say it: Stop making us look bad, kid. 

His agitation grew when he realized he was surrounded by children on both sides, and I stupidly didn't think to move him to an empty chair at the end of the table.. A personalized smock appeared, and I stupidly suggested he wear it. After that, it's a blur. I think he kicked me, kicked the table. Screams so loud the pottery rattled on the shelves. A frantic, red-faced dash to the bathroom. My hands on his shoulders, his face, my voice pleading, then rising, my patience sapping, trying to penetrate the force field of the fit, and finally sitting back helplessly watching my son lie on the floor and sob and beg to go home. He breathed an audible sigh of relief when I told him we could.

We left the bathroom and put on our coats, hats, mittens, the musty scarf. I apologized to my friend, gratefully accepted her kind, reassuring hug...and left without another word or look at any of the other parents. 

***

The craziest thing is this: just a few hours later, we went to a second birthday party. One of the children from the district's special ed program. All afternoon I kept picking up the invitation and staring at the telephone number. I should call. I should cancel. I should just apologize now and spare us all. The party was just at their house, though. The entire PEP class was invited. They'll understand, we reasoned. They'll be...more like us, like Noah.

"And if not, we'll leave," Jason said, as if that had solved just fucking EVERYTHING that morning.

At this party, there were no assigned seats, no smocks, no activities, save for a ribbon-pull pinata that delighted everyone, including Noah. Cupcakes, juice boxes, soda, beer. The children did laps around the house and jostled each other around in the play kitchen and tried to climb into an exersaucer. Noah greeted his classmates with hugs and "I love you's" and was given them in return. When it was time to sing happy birthday, Noah and another little girl both clapped their hands over their ears and howled, and her father and I laughed over how we had to decree NO SINGING at both of their birthdays. "I've never met another kid who does that!" he exclaimed. Everyone wanted to hear about the afternoon program we use, to compare Early Intervention horror stories (we were the winner, with our Early Graduation Of Bullshit and Year Of Mainstream Preschool Terror). "We could switch our sons and no one would ever notice the difference," another mother told me, after watching them play together, referring more to their shared quirks than any physical resemblance. Everyone wanted to plan the class holiday party and rave about our wonderful, lovely teacher.

Noah cried exactly once...when it was time to leave. We'd all overstayed the invitation time by a good 45 minutes. A playdate for the entire class is set for this weekend. 

***

If you asked me what my number-one goal for Noah is, at least in regards to the next couple years, I would have to say: Mainstream. Get him out of special ed, off his special bus, out of the folder filed under "developmentally delayed."

I believe he can do it -- we had the equivalent of an IEP meeting last night at his private school, and they believe he can do it too, adamant that he is not on the Spectrum, that he is a brilliant little sponge who will be able to attend school with minimal accommodations one day -- though I know that it won't necessarily be an easy goal to reach. There will be more freakouts and judgmental looks and therapy bills and insurance rejections and days where I feel like throwing unpainted pottery at the nearest wall. 

So I'm grateful, in the meantime, to have this cocoon, this soft safe space, full of people like us, and kids like him.

But I Know One Thing

Scene: Car. Interior. Jason runs into store for essentials (wine, more wine) while Amy, Noah and Ezra wait in the car. It's a nice night, so he cuts the engine. The iPod goes silent.

Noah: No! No! I want the blue song! I need the blue song!

Amy, who less than like, 24 hours earlier wrote about this very quirk, complete with the words "songs are rarely blue" because OF COURSE, quickly turns the car back on. "Bust A Move," as sung by the cast of Glee, starts up again.

Noah: No! That's the orange song. I want the BLUE song.

Amy starts going back through shuffled songs they've listened to already.

Noah: NOT THE RED SONG! I need the blue song, Mommy!

Amy starts playing random songs that he might have heard recently, then a bunch of his favorites. Four or five yellow songs, two pink and another orange song are all emphatically rejected. 

Noah; BLUE SONG. BLUE!

Amy: I don't know the blue song, Noah. I..I don't hear songs the way you do. 

Oh awesome, and now he's crying.

Amy: I don't see colors for songs, baby. That's a really special Noah thing. Can you sing it for me?

Noah snuffles and starts humming a familiar tune...that Amy still cannot quite place. Shit.

Jason returns to a scene of full-on hysterics. Noah continues to plead for his blue song. Amy is about to chuck the stupid iPod out the window.

Jason: What does the blue song sound like, buddy?

Noah hums it again. Amy suspects Vampire Weekend. Amy is wrong. Jason is like, DUDE. Amy looks at him like, I KNOW RIGHT?

Jason: What does the blue song look like?

Noah: Fireworks. Blue ones.

Amy gives up, hits shuffle, hopes for a miracle out of the 1,328 or whatever songs. "Say Hey (I Love You)" starts up, and Noah stops crying. He looks out the window and starts shaking his head to the beat.

Jason: Is this the blue song?

Noah: No. It's green. It's okay though.

Things Nobody Tells You: Four-Year-Old Edition

1) Learning to properly blow one's own nose is, in fact, a highly advanced skill. If you are able to blow your own nose, congratulations! You've accomplished something with your life after all.

2) Even AFTER one has learned and is perfectly capable of blowing one's own nose, it may take even longer before one has figured out that one SHOULD blow one's own nose, rather than sniff sniff snort snorting snot up through one's nasal cavities ALL THE LIVE-LONG DAY.

3) When one DOES opt to sniff sniff snort snort all the cotton-picking live-long mother-loving day and night, despite MUCH PLEADING AND PROMPTING from one's loving, concerned mother, one might eventually get sick to one's stomach and vomit.

4) A lot. A surprising, alarming lot.

5) Usually at 4 am, or so.

6) Maybe again at 5 am, on the sheets that you just changed, or in the wastebasket.

7) Incidentally, wicker wastebaskets are a poor, poor choice for a child's room.

8) Also, if you type the word "wastebasket" enough times it stops looking like a real word. Like you're referring to tissues as "noseblankets" or "snotwrappers" or something.

9) Anyway.

10) There will also be zero fever or any other signs of illness.

11) Which become obvious exactly two minutes AFTER one calls the bus depot and school to inform them that your poor sick child will not be attending school that day, as he is too busy consuming two bowls of Cheerios, a waffle and two fruit smoothies right before running laps at top speed around the living room while singing the Imagination Movers' theme song.

12) Then it all might happen again a week later.

13) At 3 in the morning, you can pretty much swear that you totally read an article once that said <EXACT THING YOU ARE CURRENTLY DEALING WITH> was one of the first symptoms of childhood cancer.

14) Google is open 24 hours. Also: IT'S MUCUS. BLOW YOUR NOSE. LAND SAKES ALIVE.

15)  If your child insists on taking non-traditional toys to bed to cuddle with, consider yourself lucky. It's way easier to clean vomit off a Candy Land board game than a plush teddy bear. Also: NICE AIM, KID.

Life in Color

Honestly, he's done it for as long as I can remember -- as soon as Noah had the vocabulary down, he described songs in terms of color. One day he asked for the "yellow song," and sobbed while I offered up track after incorrect track of Raffi and Dan Zanes, desperately trying to figure out what the hell song he was talking about. A song about rainbows? That paint-mixing song from Blue's Clues? Big Bird? I finally gave up, assuming it was probably some blasted Moose and Zee segment from TV with a yellow background or yellow flower or something similarly random.

Then, later: a scary movie theme. Violins in minor key. Ominous timpanis. His eyes grew large and he fled the room. "NO RED SONG," he said. "OFF. NO."

For awhile, we assumed he was assigning colors in lieu of how the song made him feel. Yellow = happy songs, red = angry, scary. Then came pink songs and purple songs. And he learned how to express how he was feeling with real words, but the color thing persisted. I cycle through my iPod or the radio pre-sets in the car and he regularly makes his requests from the backseat. "No, Mommy," he says politely and articulately, "I want the yellow song."

Once a song has a stated color, it never changes. Yellow songs tend to be upbeat, playful. Most children's music, Jack Johnson. Although his current radio favorite, You're Gonna Go Far, Kid by The Offspring, is also a yellow song. Red songs are usually in a minor key, or somewhat dramatic sounding. Classical music, the theme from The Incredibles. Anything with a strong bass line or heavily orchestrated with woodwinds and strings is either purple or pink. Everything from The White Stripes to Coldplay to Beyonce has been lumped into the purple/pink realm. 

Songs are never green and only rarely blue. Some songs don't have a color, Mommy. I mean, God. 

Sometimes I catch him squinting, idly attempting to pinch or swat at the area in front of his face. 

He is left-handed. He has a near-photographic memory for things he hears, and near-perfect pitch when he sings. I am officially pretty sure we can add synesthesia to our list of Quirks That Make You Go Hmmm.

It seems both entirely logical and yet grossly unfair for a kid who already struggles with ordering and processing his senses to be given the added complication of synesthesia.  His teachers and therapists (all of whom I've had to educate on my theory; most of whom seem to think I'm talking New Age psychobabble nonsense) report that as noise levels go up, Noah's coping skills go down. He hides, he covers his ears, he wanders around in circles or becomes utterly fixated on a soothing, repetitive task. Amateur singing, whether by me or a teacher or anyone without a record deal, pretty much always drives him bonkers. "STOP!" he shouts. "YOU DON'T. YOU CAN'T." Certain music has the opposite effect -- simple piano music soothes and centers him, though so far his perfectionist nature has kept from experimenting very much on his own keyboard.

And yet, when I read about it, and about all the amazing musicians and artists and great thinkers who have had variations of synesthesia and used it as a gift, an enhancement, a privilege to see the world in a completely different way than the rest of us, I can't help but be more than a little impressed at just how much wonderfully mysterious potential is inside that quirky little brain.

In Which a Good 75% of You Will Glaze Over By Paragraph Four

Since you guys proposed SO MANY awesome topics yesterday Tuesday, I shall continue to mine them for awhile, or at least until something actually important happens in real life that requires a veryimportantblogupdate!, and no, I'm not counting last night's Tuesday night's all-night preschooler-puke-a-thon. (He's just fine now, of course, which is good because we are plum out of clean sheets.)

From Cagey:

I have been reading The Unhealthy Truth and seem to remember you mentioning it on one of your Advice columns. The book is blowing me away and I am shocked at how few folks realize how food can really affect us - say, Red #40 for example.

I was wondering your thoughts on this and if you have seen whether certain things affect Noah. For example, artificial colorings are the devil now in our house because my son flips his lid every time he has them. And this is the same kid who can eat ice cream and go right to bed! For him, Red #40 is like main-lining a bit heroin.

Yep. I did write about this book, mere HOURS after I'd finished reading it, while I was freshly seething with rage. I have since gone back and re-read sections and pondered it some more and guess what! I AM STILL ANGRY.

(Hold on, 'cuz it's about to get screedy and caps-locky up in here.)

(I mean, more so than usual. And about other things besides an overflowing coffeemaker, or something.)

For the record, I am not a big conspiracy theorist. I am more of skeptic than a believer, and while I certainly gotten crunchier in recent years with the cloth diapers and homemade baby food and all, I still am a BIGFAN! of things like modern medicine and scientific advancements. I'm allergic to most antibiotics -- HIGHLY SO -- thus personally have always had to depend on alternative treatments for myself, and I'm not trigger-happy with the prescriptions when it comes to the kids. But both of the boys have gotten both seasonal and H1N1 flu shots this year and I would jab 'em in the arm again in a heartbeat. We fully vaccinate, falling on the "debunked" side of the vaccine/autism fence, although I think the chicken pox one is bullshit. (I never had it, and have to depend on the half-assed, temporary protection of the vaccine myself. Glad it exists; disagree that it belongs on the childhood schedule; worry about kids not getting their boosters and getting sick as adults.) I've seen the Feingolding gone amok at Noah's school, am a bit weary of suddenly every problem in the world being blamed on yeast and gluten, though I have nothing but sympathy for parents and child dealing with honest-to-God allergies and am extremely careful about sending Noah to school with clean peanut-butter-residue-free hands and non-triggering snacks, and would hope others would do the same for us. So basically, I was expecting to agree with some of what this book has to say...but also to roll my eyes at a lot of it too.

My eyes bugged out of my head, but they sure didn't roll. I'm not going to get into all of it -- the genetic engineering and corn refiners and the FDA's refusal to protect us from stuff that's long since been banned or flagged as dangerous overseas (soy baby formula, anyone?) -- but seriously, IS GAH HEAD EXPLODING TIME NOW.

Anyway, the whole artificial coloring thing. Yes, they affect Noah big time. They are banned in our home. Red 40 and Yellow 5 are just like...I don't know. Tiny seismic earthquakes through his neurological system. Artificial flavorings, too. He gets hopped up and agitated...while also weirdly shutting down at the same time. Loss of eye contact, anxiety, tantrums. He defaults back to echolaic speech or just goes silent. Anecdotal? Coincidental? Totally, sure, maybe. But it's so fucking scary, you guys. So why even argue, when it's a pretty safe assumption that Red 40 and Yellow 5 are two little things that we can all live without just fine?

And they are in EVERYTHING. It doesn't have to be garishly candy-coated. It's stuff that should technically, be healthy. Yogurts. Granola bars. Fruit snacks. Boxed cake mixes (seriously, why the FUCK does a CHOCOLATE CAKE need both red and yellow food dyes?). Toothpastes, kiddie vitamins and cold medicines. It's BULLSHIT, trying to shop at a "regular" grocery store when you need to avoid this stuff, even more so when (like us) you've also cut out high-fructose corn syrup and partially hydrogenated oils for various other Frankenfood reasons.

We're lucky that we live in an area where Whole Foods is about as common as any grocery store, along with Trader Joe's and several year-round farmer's markets where we buy pretty much everything from produce to grains to meats and fish. (Up where my parents live, you either live on one fancy organic aisle at the Acme or drive close to an hour to the nearest Whole Foods in New Jersey.) We're also very lucky that we can afford to shun the processed foods and eat organic, local, humane, sustainable and all those other hippie food buzzwords. I'll sacrifice plenty of other columns in our budget before I cut food corners, particularly for the kids. (She says while wondering if it's too early to switch from coffee to Coke. And fun-sized Snickers.)

And it took us a long time to get fully here, by the way. Hell, we potty-trained with M&Ms, fed Noah Flintstones vitamins, brushed his teeth with sparkly blue Disney-branded toothpaste. It really wasn't until we stopped giving him anything artificial that we really saw how little it takes to really affect him, be it candy or fast food chocolate milk or a fruit-flavored Triaminic strip. We don't deny him the occasional treat or get hysterical if friends or family offer him something we wouldn't necessarily feed him at home...we just sort of know what we're in for and up our focus on the rest of his diet for a day or two.

If you are unsure of how or where to start, The Unhealthy Truth is a great book for this as well -- at least after scaring the pants off you the author devotes a chapter on how to prioritize your grocery list and budget, taking baby steps to avoid the "worst" things and slowly get your kids to accept healthier versions without feeling like you've just ripped the rug out from under them and clobbered them with a Deprivation Hippie Stick.

Anyway. I actually wrote the bulk of this entry yesterday, right before my parent-teacher conference at the public school program. And finally, OH GOD FINALLY, I got to sit there in front of a team of teachers who had nothing but lovely, wonderful things to say about my child. What a delight and a joy he is, how smart and funny he is, and how much progress he's already making. I'm certainly not all, "OH, IT'S ALL BECAUSE WE THREW OUT HALF OF HIS HALLOWEEN CANDY. ARE BEST PARENTS EVER."

In the grand scheme of things, it's admittedly a tiny part of the puzzle. Though WOW, did I ever have a lot to say about it.

In other news, Noah is kicking ass at school. And I'm committing that phrase to published type: NOAH IS KICKING ASS AT SCHOOL. We celebrated by not coming right home so I could sit around and finish this entry. I hope you understand. It's been a long time coming.