The Neenee of the Heart

When you have a speech-delayed kid, you will be constantly warned not to imitate their pronunciation, no matter how adorable it may be. When they butcher a word, you are supposed to model the correct pronunciation. You will be told this is very, very important. I have a very, very hard time remembering this.

"Buddy, do you want some muck?" I ask while pouring the milk.

"MMMMMMUCK!" he shrieks and nods his head.

"If you are a good boy, I bet you'll get a baboonay," I tell him at Trader Joe's.

"Yaaaay baboonaaaay!" he shrieks and eyes the balloons at the register.

When I tuck him at night, he asks for his neenee.

"Of course Mama will turn on your neenee," I say just before pulling the string on his favorite music box. That one is probably my favorite, since he calls ALL music -- instrumental, vocal, Snoop Dogg -- neenee.

Jason (who gets nagged with more child language development bullshiteese than anybody in the world -- "Stop! You're playing the Director Role! That's not the Tuned-In Parent! You're not O.W.L.ing it! Observe! Wait! Listen!") hears me do this and raises a silent, judging eyebrow.

"But it's so cuuuute!" I whine. "And his friend Max talks in paragraphs but still calls squirrels zaaaas because Julie thought it was funny and never told him that they aren't really called zaaaas and it's also so cuuuute!"

"One word," Jason says. "GUCKY."

Touché, dammit.

When I was a very little girl, probably a toddler, I called poop "gucky." Like...yucky. But...gooey. I don't know. My parents and siblings thought it was so cuuuuute and started using it all the time. Nobody went poop, we all went gucky.

The problem was, NOBODY TOLD ME I MADE THE DAMN WORD UP. Nobody, that is, until I used it in front of other kids. IN THE FIRST GRADE.

Not cute. Try mortifying.

Yesterday I was out shopping with Julie and Max (who cheerfully informed me that "Mas went Grandpa's house a couple days, um Amy? After baby brother come we go to California for good yaaay!" and it suddenly took all my strength to not collapse in a sobbing puddle in the men's department at Nordstrom because baby brother is due in two weeks and I have not yet been able to permanently affix myself to Julie's ankle while wailing DON'T LEAVE MEEEEE, but I'm working on it. I just got this new kind of glue off an infomercial.).

Noah heard the piano playing as we passed the escalator. "Uusic?" he asked.

I sucked in my breath and put my hand over my heart -- no! not uusic! neenee! call it neenee! -- before answering by the book.

"Yes Noah, music. Pretty music. Let's stop and listen to the music."

"Uusic," he said again, happily.

(He's also calling choo choos "trains" now all of a sudden. Will probably cost the island of Sodor millions in rebranding costs.)

Lunch Bunch Dropout

So I quit Lunch Bunch yesterday. And the one-on-one occupational therapy.

(The eyeballs of several trolls just rolled completely out of their heads and out into traffic. Quick! Run after them!)

I pretty much knew it was time to quit after last week, and then Noah's success in his Thursday Non-Lunch-Bunch class confirmed what I already suspected: Noah did not like his occupational therapist, and she didn't quite seem to like him very much either, and no, the marriage could not be saved and was probably doomed from the day she walked into our house and then tried to rub his face with the duckie washcloth 15 seconds after saying hi.

We moved OT from our house to the early intervention center. We added group therapy and a special ed teacher and yet, no progress.

I should have listened to my gut and just called and requested a new therapist. But lo, I am pussy, hear me puss out. I kept giving it one more week, another try, another chance for Noah to snap out it because dude, she hasn't touched your face in months! Chill out. Eat some pudding.

Then last week she called him a brat.

She. Called. Him. A Brat.

I cannot even tell you what it felt like to hear that -- especially after weeks of frayed nerves and nonstop worry; especially hearing it in the one place where special needs children are supposed to be understood and accepted. But because Noah was not getting any better, she decided that it was not her, it was him. Since she'd been unable to help him, his panic and screaming and refusal to do anything she asked were not sensory at all, but were "just him being a B-R-A-T."

I guess I should give her points for spelling it, since Noah was within earshot. But my heart clenched and my hair stood up on the back of my neck and Dear Internet Confessional, I have never, ever come so close to whipping my earrings out and lunging at someone's hair.

But instead, I just. Sat there. Dumbfounded. Because...mother h. fucker, Noah is one of the least bratty children in the world, swear to God, and I would really tell you if I believed otherwise. He is strong-willed, he is sensitive, he is difficult in his own difficult-to-define way. He is also calm and meticulous, empathetic beyond his years, loving and affectionate and just an all-around sweetheart. (I know, I know, he is also the most beautiful child who ever walked the earth and the smartest and his poop smells like flowers blah blah mama-delusion-cakes.)

I'm so disappointed that I just sat there. I think I maybe stammered that...uh...actually I don't think so, I think there might be some TRUST ISSUES at play here (what with her insistence that if we just forcibly hold him on top of the exercise ball, eventually he'll stop being scared of the exercise ball, GAH GAH GAH DID YOU LEARN EVERYTHING YOU KNOW ABOUT SENSORY INTEGRATION DISORDER FROM THE BACK OF A CEREAL BOX?).

I should have said something else, or marched down to the office and demanded a new therapist right then and there, but I didn't. I sat there, in a little crumpled pile of defeat.

And then, Thursday.

That occupational therapist told me that Noah did need support to stay with the group, but she gave him that support and he stayed with the group. And he needed a lot of extra time to process transitions. While they gave the rest of the class a one-minute warning between activities, Noah got one at five minutes, and four, three, two and one. He needed time alone when he got overwhelmed -- they let him hide under a slide for a few minutes whenever they sensed the noise of the room was starting to get to him. Every teacher in the room was willing and able to help him, and he clearly adored them by the end of the hour. One hour, and total preschool-ready victory was achieved.

And then, yesterday. Lunch Bunch. With her. Once again, an exhausting, tantrummy mess. Noah did sit for awhile (only after some help from a random therapist who was there to observe) and fed some plastic fruit to a puppet. But it was obvious that he was not being all he could be. She suggested that perhaps we should drop all this and let Noah focus on his Thursday class. She told me I could think about it.

I thought about it. Five minutes later I signed the paperwork agreeing to end OT services. It felt good. It was the right thing to do.

The right thing for NOW, anyway. Let me say, while the therapy itself was usually kind of tortuous, there's no denying that Noah is a totally different kid now. Her bedside manner may have left something to be desired (she actually always sort of reminded me of my very first lactation consultant, a woman who can still make me cry just by passing by me in the pediatrician's office hallway), but she gave us tons of stuff to try and activities to do and ways to incorporate therapy into everyday play. And it all worked. I mean, SLIDES. HE GOES DOWN SLIDES. He jumps! He walks up the stairs sometimes! He no longer toe-walks and rarely falls. He eats...well, he eats a few more things, but no longer seems completely repulsed by certain textures or the feel of a fork. We will continue with the class on Thursday, and if I think he needs more OT services, I will request them from the therapist from there. Noah gave her a hug last week. I think he likes her. I like her. But I think we've cleared that particular hurdle.

While his speech started improving almost immediately after we started Early Intervention, we only really got the big language explosion AFTER we saw the OT-related improvements.   Maybe I should have switched therapists, maybe it could have been easier, maybe it all would have corrected itself on its own.  In the end, though, I can't argue with success, however we found it.

I officially enrolled Noah in a preschool this morning. And I think the little brat is going to do just fine.

Run-on happy

I'm afraid if I try and do that thing where I put on my little serious writer's cap and try to write something eloquent and/or witty I will actually ruin this moment because I just can't wait to get the words out and tell everyone that Noah didn't cry at class today at all and I was in the next room the whole time supposedly getting taught how to teach my kid to talk but I really spent the whole time listening for his screams and when I didn't hear them I asked one of the veteran moms if the rooms were soundproof and she said no and I didn't believe her but when we went to join our babies for the goodbye song Noah was running around with a big smile on his face and then he ran to the teacher and sat on her lap while we all sang goodbye to him off-key and horribly and then he SAT ON A CHAIR NEXT TO HER and clapped along to the song and waved bye-bye to his friends and said "Again?" after each kid's turn and when we sang goodbye to a child named Kay Noah said "Kay!" and made the sign for the letter k and I was on the other side of the circle and burst into tears and the occupational therapist thought I was upset about something and rushed over to tell me how wonderful Noah was and how they worked extra-hard with him through the transitions and how he sat at circle time and snack time and talked so much and oh, what a smart smart smart little boy he is and I just stood there sobbing like a loon while Noah put his hands on my cheeks and said "Hi Mama" over and over and then he wouldn't let us leave until he gave all the teachers a hug and I haven't even learned their names yet but thank you thank you thank you.

My heart, it is soaring.

The Easy vs. The Good

(Fair warning here: this post is one big emo crybaby jag away from being my own LEAVE BRITNEY ALONNNNNE! video, even though it is not about Britney at all)

(But for real, people. LEAVE BRITNEY ALONNNNNNE!)

So there's this song on one of Noah's Signing Time DVDs -- it's over the end credits and has made me emit a Free-Hugs-Campaign-Like-Snorfle on more than one occasion. Rachel (Signing Time host/creator/Noah's favorite thing this side of creepy animatronic choo-choos) wrote it for her husband, presumably sometime after their first daughter was born deaf and their second daughter was born with spina bifida and cerebral palsy:

It was you and me and the whole world right before us
I couldn’t wait to start
I saw you and dreams just like everyone before us
We thought we knew what we got

And then one day I thought it slipped away
And I looked to my hands to hold on
And then one day all my fear slipped away
And my hands did so much more

So maybe we won’t find easy
But, baby, we’ve found the good
No, maybe we won’t find easy
But, baby, we’ve found the good.

And this is where I'd dissolve into a puddle of mush, because SO BRAVE! So inspirational! So RISING TO THE OCCASION!

(Bear with me, folks, it's been a hormonal day year decade.)

I've been singing that last chorus a lot this past week (in my head, of course, I have no desire to inflict that sort of suffering on my family), mostly every time I come to Typepad and stare at a blank entry page.

I'm so tired of this. Of writing the same, whiny entry about how hard therapy is and how badly Noah behaves at his little classes and trying to think of a new and "funny" way to describe a temper tantrum. And really, what's the point? This little blip in Noah's development has been documented enough. I've gotten valuable advice and support and my goodness, it's been a huge help. (Transitional objects from home! Photo album of the classroom!) But at this point, I don't really need any more reassurance that we're doing the right thing, because I know we're doing the right thing. I know it will get better, but in the meantime how many times can I write that hey, we aren't there yet?

There are plenty of blogs out there where you can read about how tough motherhood is and how much it can suck and how impossible kids are. I never wanted to be of those, particularly since this blog was always intended to be read by its very precious main subject someday.

Lately I've struggled with a lot of stuff I never wanted to be. Back in the pre-Noah days, when I bargained with God and the universe for a baby, back when I pledged a Holy Mother Christ-like level of care and love for whatever hypothetical baby I ended up with. Oh, I was going to do everything right and lovelovelove shinyrainbowunicornbutts. I was never going to yell or lose my temper or be that mom storming out of the grocery store dragging a limp-noodle screaming toddler behind her by the arm with that grim look of oh my god I will KILL the first person who even DARES look at me cross-eyed and judge my parenting.

I guess some days the best you can hope for is never again. Or maybe just that it'll happen when you're shopping at an off time, thus reducing the number of witnesses.

(Here's where the bad stand-up comedian in me wants to slide in a rimshot like, "Motherhood Would Be So Much Easier Without All These Damn Kids!" Ha! Lemme cross-stitch that onto a sweatshirt for ya.)

It's certainly not in my nature to sugarcoat anything -- more so these days than ever -- but by writing about and focusing on the Hard, I feel like I'm missing out on the Good.

On Wednesday Noah sat in my lap and ate some Cheerios and after a few minutes I slid him into a chair next to his classmates. He stayed there. He poked a piece of pineapple when asked, he shared his cup with the girl next to him, he obediently put his plate and fork in the clean-up bucket. He went to the bookshelf like the teacher told him to before resuming his temporarily paused freak-out.

On Thursday he played well with the other children during free time. He watched a boy send a car down a slide and started to go for the car before pausing to see if the other boy was really done playing with it. He used sign language to ask for a turn. The other little boy signed no, and Noah calmly went to find another car. Free time ended. Stuff happened. It was hard. But then he sat and ate a snack and drank from a juice box for the very first time.

Last night he took a pasta noodle and pressed it across his face like a mustache. He declared himself to be "a PopPop!"

It's all so very, very good.

Maybe It's Because I Forgot to Teach Him the Secret Lunch Bunch Gang Sign

So I'm turning 30 next week -- blah blah yes yes whatever not the point of this entry FOCUS people -- and when Jason asked me what I wanted, I did not even hesitate. All I wanted in the world was to not ever go back to the ruddy stinking Lunch Bunch nonsense.

He got me a MacBook instead.

Oh, I'm kidding. (Sort of. MmmmmmacBook. Shiny!) He took Noah to the class today, alone. I wish my reasons were more admirable -- to expand Jason's involvement in Noah's various therapies, to give him first-hand experience with what we're dealing with, or to maybe see if Noah behaved better without my neurotic self there. All perfectly good reasons, all perfect steaming loads of bullshit. I just didn't want to go. Don't make me. I can throw quite a tantrum myself, actually.

So Jason went and I stayed home and obsessed over Jamie Lynn Spears, clearly the current poster child for responsible, involved parenting.

It did not go well, again. Noah continued his full-scale freak-out over anything vaguely structured and bawled and clung and thrashed and screamed. Last week Jason listened to my report and wondered if maybe, JUST MAYBE, our kid was not SID or SPD , but was just an under-socialized brat who is allowed to run wild all day, which made ME freak out because I had been wailing that THIS IS ALL MY FAULT WAIT SHUT UP YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO ARGUE AND SAY THIS NOT ALL MY FAULT.

This week, Jason was a little baffled by what he witnessed. Noah was not just annoyed by being asked to sit on a chair. It wasn't like sitting on a chair at that particular moment was keeping him from the activity that he REALLY wanted to do. Noah was scared -- absolutely terrified -- of sitting in that chair. Or washing his hands. Or doing this or that or anything the teacher asked him to do.

And I think I get that. Back when I used to have anxiety attacks, I would have anxiety ABOUT my anxiety. I'd freak out before leaving the house because what would happen if I freaked out after I left the house? I was panicking about panicking.

Noah doesn't process things the way he should. I don't understand it, and obviously he doesn't understand it.  I don't know how he'll react to certain situations, and neither does he. Thus: someone asks him to sit in a chair, he doesn't understand why, he doesn't know what that person is going to do to him once he's sitting on that chair, they might sing or touch his face or hold his hand or do any number of things that set him off. Therefore: I am not going to give you that chance, motherfucker, and I am not sitting in that chair.

I don't know. Maybe?

Someone commented on the entry about last week's class and said, basically, what's the point? Don't go if it stresses you out, you're making a bigger deal of this than you should, he'll outgrow it, etc.

I would love to not go. I loved not going today! I love that there's no class next week and I won't have to think about it until January. But. I'm going back in January. We'll actually be there two days a week then, because Noah's also enrolled in a Hanen program that starts up soon. (Big perk for that one? NO MAMA IN THE ROOM. MAMA HIDES IN ROOM DOWN THE HALL. MAMA'S IPOD GOES UP REAL GOOD AND LOUD.)

For us -- personally, and our situation is not your situation and I would never, ever presume that there is only one "right" way to do things and Lo, We Are Doing It -- the therapy is kind of a no-brainer. We either deal with this behavior now, or we deal with it in September, when we get a call from Noah's preschool about Noah causing disruptions in class, when Noah is three and no longer qualifies for help from Early Intervention and we're dealing with a whole other class of services. Taking a wait-and-see-if-he-outgrows-it approach seems unnecessarily risky. Sure, he might! He might not. Then what?

And I know. He's two. Two-year-olds push and test and can be serious, serious assholes. It's hard to really explain the many nuances of Noah's issues in a blog entry -- how yes, he's only two but...still. Something's...off.

Jason saw it today. Something...different. Something wrong, something whatever. I guess I have to ask you to take our word for it, or at least not to call us neurotic to our faces.

There's a small window, I think, before "issues" that interfere with behavior kind of meld into "behavior" that interferes with living life. There's a lot of sitting in preschool. In chairs! People sing! Badly!

I'm proud of our boy and the job we've done -- I know he feels safe and confident at home. He loves me. He strokes my face and hair and says "Oh Mama," before covering me in kisses. When he came home today from class he wanted me to hold him and cuddle him and tell him everything was just fine. I wish that were enough, but I know my job doesn't end with preparing him for the wilds of the basement playroom. There's a big scary world outside of our little house, and I can't stay home on Wednesdays and pretend that Noah's ready for it.

In the Meantime We Got it Hard

Noah's occupational therapy has been...not going well. To put it mildly. We've made so little progress -- OT arrives at door, Noah bolts, spends entire session wailing from under the dining room table because he. Does. NOT. Want. To. Ride. On. A. Towel. Christ. Almighty. -- so his therapist suggested moving his sessions to the EI center and enrolling him in a couple structured class-type things.

Today was the first of those structured class-type things. The Lunch Bunch, they call it. For kids with oral motor problems and sensory food issues. On paper, it sounds lovely -- a little circle time, feeding plastic food to a puppet, then setting the table and eating some lunch, cleaning up and a story. Every other week the kids make the lunch; other weeks you bring it from home. One food they like and another they don't, which they will then be encouraged to lick or kiss or even just to TOUCH it while putting it in the clean-up bucket.

So it's a lot of kids who eat crackers and shriek at the sight of lunch meat, basically. Our kind of people.

But...oh God. I don't even know where to begin. There are no words for how badly this class went.

Noah screamed. And screamed. And. Screamed. He screamed when asked to sit on a little chair. He screamed when people sang. He screamed at the puppet and he screamed at the plastic fruit and he screamed at the sink and the plastic plates and his apple slices.

He wept and clung to me and then smashed his head into my face. The little girl next to us was obligingly kissing her ham and the little boy next to her was using a spoon to eat some yogurt and before I could help it, I was sobbing too. Big fat tears that I couldn't stop or hide because hello! I am the biggest failure in this room and I don't know how to make him stop screaming and sit in the chair and my face hurts now and while I am really, really heartbroken over how hard this is for him, JESUS CHRIST, it's a fucking CHAIR that you SIT ON, WHAT THE FUCK.

I wanted to bundle him up and go back to the car, to hug him and tell him he never has to go back.

I also wanted to leave him there and go back to the car and drive far, far away from him and stay there for days.

Instead, we stayed. I pulled myself together and wiped up my mascara smudges while everybody kindly looked the other way.  Noah threw himself down on a mat and screamed some more. We managed to get him to toss his uneaten apple slices in the clean-up bucket, even though the reward for cleaning up (you get to go read a book! and sit on more chairs!) resulted in more screaming.

45 minutes and several burst eardrums later, it was over. Noah was red, sweaty and tear-stained and I was filling out a form that asked me to comment on the day's activities, which ended up being a lot of Not Applicables and HA HA HA HAAAAAAAAAAAAs.

We had a one-on-one OT session right after, during which Noah was an angel. Of course. He jumped on a trampoline and rode on a little car and rolled around in a pile of pillows. I sat there and couldn't stop the awkward, shaken crying as I struggled to tell his therapist that really, I swear to God, I'm a good mother. I discipline, he listens to me, we get compliments on his behavior from strangers, he's loved and happy, we just don't have a lot of structure to our days and I've been feeling kind of blue lately and my best mom friend is moving to California in two months and I just found out yesterday and I think I should go back to work but we want another baby but I can't get pregnant but God, I have no business having another baby, 20 minutes ago I was ready to slap the shit out of the one I already have.

(OK, I don't think I quite said all of that out loud. At least I hope I didn't.)

She told me it will get easier. That some kids are just like this, that we'll figure it out and get him used to structure and stimuli and other children breathing his air and daring to sing in his presence. That yes, clearly his sensory problems are affecting his ability to deal with life and chairs, but everyone here understands. They know he's struggling because their kids struggle too. They've all been that mother -- the one with the out-of-control wigged-out Jekyll-and-Hyde child, terrified that everyone is judging you and your bratty kid and why doesn't she DO something to MAKE him stop crying -- and anyway, her point was that it will get easier.  Some day, at some point.

But probably not before next Wednesday at 11:30 am in room C7. See you there. Bring earplugs.

71*

Last night Jason and I were snacking on some cheese -- the stinky, ooky, weirdo cheeses that scare everybody else but oh God, I could eat an entire wheel, hell, I could build a car out of them and then eat all four wheels -- and Noah came over and asked for some. He signed cheese, over and over, and would not accept our explanation that this was probably not the kind of cheese he'd like. He insisted, so Jason gave him a bite.

He gingerly touched it to his tongue, and then promptly handed it back to Jason.

"Yuck," he said, clear as day.

I wonder when we'll stop celebrating every word. When we'll just nod and shrug and go on with our meal instead of pumping our fists in the air and laughing, like holy crap, did you just hear that? I wonder when I'll move him out of the "speech-delayed, present tense" and into the "speech-delayed, past tense, can you believe this kid used to ever not talk?", and when I'll stop flinching when strangers ask him questions he can't answer (What's your name? How old are you? You must be talkin' up a storm these days, huh?) and when family members ask me what sign he's making for the millionth time.

He's catching up, bit by bit and word by word. I feel like he's the least speech-delayed kid in early intervention -- like we already have no business being there anymore, OT issues aside -- but I still can't quite shake the worry that he's still not quite where he "should" be. Even though I honestly don't even know where, exactly, that is.

Four months ago, before the "diagnosis" and signing and speech therapy, he had five words, maybe six. Today, as of right now, including "hurt" which he just said for the first time five minutes ago, he has 71. I know that because I've written each and every one down. I wonder when I'll stop doing that too, like I did with the list of signs when I realized that he basically knew every sign on every DVD.

I'm ready to let go of the labels and the worry. I'm even ready to let go of the lists.

But I'm not ready to stop the celebrating.

I kind of hope I never will.

Air of Mystery

While there are very few topics I consider off-limits for this blog, I made the random decision ages ago that I would not publicly document the potty-training process.

Thus, please accept my baffled, sort-of impressed and mostly stony silence today. I don't know what I am doing, but that boy will do anything -- GODDAMN ANYTHING -- in exchange for dessert.

***
I spent most of the weekend planting bulbs in the garden. Me. Planting bulbs. In the dirt, where there are worms and it was cold and I forgot to change my pants so I was the asshole planting bulbs in low-rise skinny jeans who every once in awhile would remember to yank down on her sweatshirt, but wouldn't take her gardening gloves off so her entire back and half of her ass were covered in dirt by the end, and honestly, what are the odds ANY of those bulbs are going to bloom in the spring? Bad. Slim to none. And I am quite bitter about it already, and I spent the morning sending real estate links to Jason, subtly suggesting that we move back into a condo, because eff. This. Dirt. Shit.

***
Speaking of Jason, he replaced the light bulb, but not the fixture.

"I wouldn't want to deprive you of blog material," he said.

Oh, and a friend came over for lunch and wanted to know how I got all that magic marker off the lamp, at which point I realized. DEFACEMENT. YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG.

***
Words Noah has busted out with in the past week or two: arm, hand, ear, hair, teeth, sock, green, cold, again, another, book, bath, bike, bee, cow, moo, clue, Steve, sit, chair, think, sad, wet, hi, yes, mine, me, my, heart, you, love.

Read the last four again, and just imagine all the fumbly, wonderful ways a two-year-old can use those in a sentence.

Checking in

We're good. We're super good.

I had a nice snotty ol' weepfest this morning, reading your comments, and I may have possibly had an imaginary conversation with you (ME: Buh-buh-but I don't FEEL brave! YOU: Go Amy, Go No-ah, Go, Go, Go No-ah!) and then I wandered off to look at lolcats, or something.

Anyway, I needed that. Thank you, everybody, for being so kind. You guys are such a help, you don't even know. You make me a better mother, honestly, by allowing me to sometimes skip the funny and just sort of...BLAH! EEK! GAH! all over the place, and then by helping me through it with all your stories and support.

I've started about five or six DEEPLY META entries about this and the Internetosphere and modern motherhood, but I've deleted them all because they all stink of post-divorce celebrity press releases and belly button lint. (So...sort of like Paris Hilton's perfumes, then.)

Instead, please accept this awkward hug and/or affectionate punch in the arm.

Hug.

Punch.

Anybody else watching Pushing Daisies? Ahem.

Anyway, like I said, we're good.

We're having one of those lazy days here -- it's dark and raining, so we all overslept. Breakfast lasted until almost 10 am and I didn't shower until 2 pm and we ate lunch on the kitchen floor, sharing a bowl of macaroni and cheese while singing along to Raffi. Noah said "more" for the first time ever.

Yep. We're really, really good.

(I'm not sure what I'm more impressed by...the letter sorting or how he very almost has KTHXBYE spelled out.)

Untitled, for Lack of a Title

Once again, I am blown away by the response to Monday's post. (I would link to it but my head feels like it is about to split open and I'm trying not to spend much time looking at a computer screen. Or read. Which means I am typing this entry while staring at the ceiling. I am n0t kiddign.) And once again, it sounds so trite to simply say, "Thank you for all your comments and emails." But...thank you for all your comments and emails.

I'm still a bundle of emotions and opinions about That Thing From Monday. Let's recap!

DENIAL!

I think they may be full of shit. Like a lot of you mentioned, when you go looking for problems, you're going to find them. Especially when it comes to sensory processing disorder. If I said, no, Noah doesn't usually sit still and read books, he likes to tear around the house like a linebacker who just won big at the dogfight, they'd tell me that oh my goodness, your child is not processing sensory movement properly and is seeking extra sensory input with a constant need for motion.

Since Noah does sit still and read books, well oh my goodness, he's seeking to lessen his sensory input because he isn't able to control his body in space.

I just made all that shit up, by the way. Please don't use this blog as a diagnostic tool for SPD. The only real guidance I can offer is that one about the weevils.

But seriously. They asked if Noah was "clumsy." If he "tripped a lot" or "fell more than other children his age." HE IS A TODDLER. ONE WHO TODDLES. I couldn't quite figure out what yardstick they were comparing him against. Yeah...he...falls. Don't...toddlers...fall? Sometimes? What is sometimes? What is a lot? What day is it, and is it noon yet, because dear God, I would like some wine.

ANGER! GAR SMASH!

Seriously, WHY? Why is this happening? Why me, why my baby, why why why whyyyyyyy. I have really tried to avoid the sad little pity party over here, since my God, get a grip, it could all be so much worse.

And a lot of mothers have emailed me with Worse. I've read all about Worse. I'm exceedingly grateful that  y'all are so understanding that Worse doesn't matter when it's your child. You're entitled to a little myopic thinking every now and again, at least at first.  Or maybe at first, and then again whenever the next layer of the special-needs onion (parfait? onion parfait?) gets peeled away.

SAD! VERY SAD! BOO HOO WITH SIGN LANGUAGE TEARS!

I spent a few hours with my friend on Monday. Her son is two months younger than Noah. And oh, man -- all spectacular progress aside -- he's left Noah in the dust. He talks in sentences and paragraphs. He can tell you what he did that day and what he did the day before. He'll ask to sit on the potty and tell you which animals live at the zoo and which animals live on a farm. He'll ask me where my dog Sahba is, whether Jason is at work, whether Noah would like some juice.

Every once in awhile Noah would wander over and join the conversation.

"ABALL!" he'd announce, holding...yep, that's a ball, baby. Good job.

Sigh.

ACCEPTANCE! BELEAGUERED, TIRED ACCEPTANCE!

Fine. Weekly speech therapy, weekly occupational therapy. Can't hurt, might help.

Fine. Maybe Noah does wobble a little more than most kids. Maybe he is a little old to be tripping over his feet as much as he does. Maybe 25 months is a little old to finally be celebrating baby's first zerbert.

But I like my kid the way he is. You can call it a disorder, but I know.

I know perfect when I see it.