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Today was a good day, relatively speaking.<br><br>
I picked up my three-year-old son, Adam (not his real name), from his preschool in the early afternoon. His teacher said he'd had a happy day, even though he carried home wet pants (again) and wore hand-me-down jeans from the classroom because I'd forgotten to restock his clean clothes. Silly Mommy!<br><br>
We were ready to go, and the day was cold and drizzly, but there was a Jeep Cherokee parked in front of the school. Adam loves Jeeps. It's this week's obsession. He would not budge from that sidewalk until the Jeep left -- which it did within a few minutes, thank goodness, or things would have gone south quickly. (It often does, at pickup time.)<br><br>
We drove to the town's special education office to drop off some forms. In the office, Adam wandered and bounced like any three-year-old. But he suddenly stopped and stared. "The Boston Globe," he said solemnly, reading off of a poster in the corner. The woman in the office praised him for recognizing the newspaper's logo. I should have let it rest there, but I just couldn't. "Watch this. Adam, can you read, um... this box over here?"<br><br>
He looked at the box and didn't hesitate. "United... States..." He paused and experimented with pronunciations. "Postal... Service. United States Postal Service!"<br><br>
The woman gaped at me and whispered, "Holy crap. Seriously?"<br><br>
"Oh, yes," I said cheerfully. "That wasn't a fluke. He can read really well. It's called hyperlexia, and it's just part of who he is, along with the autism spectrum disorder."<br><br>
This "autistic" child -- because that's what the diagnosis says -- jumped back and forth through an office door, looked directly up at this woman he'd never seen before, and lit up the room with his thousand-watt smile.<br><br>
We went to Starbucks next. He knows the routine there, and he happily sat down at a table of his choice. He pulled out a library book and sat and read to himself while we drank our hot chocolate (for him) and caffe mocha (for me) with whipped cream (for both). For a while, we trade back and forth, reading parts of the book to each other. I ask him questions sometimes, all of which he answers with monosyllabic replies -- "Which cat is that?" "How does the girl feel?" -- but he isn't interested in actual conversation. He rarely is. He keeps his own counsel.<br><br>
On the way out, we were waylaid by Jeeps again. A Liberty, a Rubicon -- he knows them all. He has to approach the parked Jeeps and "go by them." We talked about that one's color: "Red Jeep!" "Really, Adam? I'm thinking it looks purple." "No! Dark red!" "Or brown? Maybe maroon?" "Dark red!!!" See, once he makes up his mind, it's made up for good. Maybe all three-year-olds are like that; I wouldn't know.<br><br>
I'm worried that he'll need a potty soon. I have to guess when he needs one, because he doesn't seem to know when he needs to go. We skedaddled to the town library and made it to the restroom just in time. In the children's room, we settled in next to a shelf of picture books, and he picked out titles that intrigued him, such as "Love You When You Whine." He read the whole book by himself (ignoring my occasional question about it). I wondered, as would his father later tonight, if Adam sees himself in the protagonist's endless troublemaking? "Love you when you pour the cereal all over the floor. Love you when you cut up Mommy's checkbook."<br><br>
He was restless, wandering around the room. Then I hit the jackpot: a trove of Thomas the Tank Engine original stories! Oh yeah! Adam's interest was piqued again. We settled into chairs, and he eagerly read "Percy's Promise" aloud, even when another preschool boy came over and listened (though my son just ignored him). It was a virtuoso performance, with fine diction, appropriate intonation, humor, and very few pronunciation mistakes! I enjoyed listening to him. And no adults were listening or gaping at him, which was fine with me.<br><br>
I had promised him that we could go to a nearby toy store after the library. We gathered our things, dropped off our bag of books and other things in the car, and walked across the street. Predictably, he headed straight for the bin of toy cars. I played with the sweet Folkmanis puppets, occasionally bringing one over to Adam. He acknowledged the monkey puppet for three seconds: "Oh, Curious George!" And then it's back to the cars. (The other puppets, and other kids around him, are not acknowledged at all.)<br><br>
We hadn't been there five minutes when he wet his pants. And his socks. And the floor. Arrrgh! I politely asked for a restroom key, then realize that I've left all his dry clothes in the car. Double arrrgh! We walked all the way back to the car, which couldn't have been comfortable for the poor soaking-wet kid. The rain had started again, too.<br><br>
At the car, I struggled to get him out of the wet clothes. He wouldn't cooperate. He wouldn't stand in the car -- he insisted on standing in the wet parking lot, in the rain. I pulled down his pee-soaked hand-me-down jeans that aren't his. He screamed in my ear. The wet denim got stuck over his foot. He screamed again. I struggled, he struggled, he's half-naked, there are people in this parking lot...<br><br>
Suddenly, he's talking about Jeeps again. Jeeps this, Jeeps that. "I loooove Jeeps!" he says happily. What the hell? Why this sudden emotional switch? Why is he still being a limp noodle as I try to take these wet clothes off of him? Why can't he hold the pee for three minutes? Why can't he ever, EVER, ask me for a freaking bathroom? Why did we get a kid who can't do this really basic stuff, who can't treat other kids like human beings, who's brilliant and amazing and huggy and smiley but can't toilet-train? Why us?<br><br>
I finally yanked off the wet pants and underwear, and this comes unbidden out of my mouth: "I don't care about Jeeps!"<br><br>
And I hate myself for a moment.<br><br>
Slowly and gently, I help Adam into his dry underwear and warmup pants. I fumble with his wet shoes and get them into the car -- I'll put them on him later. I apologize and give him a hug, nuzzling my nose into his damp hair. His unique head smell, the same as when he was a baby, calms me down.<br><br>
We drive home. "I love Jeeps, Mommy," says Adam. "I know, baby," I say, and turn to smile at him. He gives me his thousand-watt smile again. I reach back and gently rub his sock-covered foot, which, for once, he tolerates.<br><br>
"Sorry I got angry, Mommy." Angry? I was the angry one! But he's following a script he learned once. "I'm sorry I was angry, too," I say. He switches to another script, singsong, with a sly grin at the end: "My bad! I made a mistake!" Over and over again. The autism people call this echolalia. I call it adaptive -- he is trying to connect, trying to say what he feels, and he just doesn't have the right words yet. But he tries. He tries so hard.<br><br>
"Love you when you whine!"<br><br>
Of course I do, little love.
I picked up my three-year-old son, Adam (not his real name), from his preschool in the early afternoon. His teacher said he'd had a happy day, even though he carried home wet pants (again) and wore hand-me-down jeans from the classroom because I'd forgotten to restock his clean clothes. Silly Mommy!<br><br>
We were ready to go, and the day was cold and drizzly, but there was a Jeep Cherokee parked in front of the school. Adam loves Jeeps. It's this week's obsession. He would not budge from that sidewalk until the Jeep left -- which it did within a few minutes, thank goodness, or things would have gone south quickly. (It often does, at pickup time.)<br><br>
We drove to the town's special education office to drop off some forms. In the office, Adam wandered and bounced like any three-year-old. But he suddenly stopped and stared. "The Boston Globe," he said solemnly, reading off of a poster in the corner. The woman in the office praised him for recognizing the newspaper's logo. I should have let it rest there, but I just couldn't. "Watch this. Adam, can you read, um... this box over here?"<br><br>
He looked at the box and didn't hesitate. "United... States..." He paused and experimented with pronunciations. "Postal... Service. United States Postal Service!"<br><br>
The woman gaped at me and whispered, "Holy crap. Seriously?"<br><br>
"Oh, yes," I said cheerfully. "That wasn't a fluke. He can read really well. It's called hyperlexia, and it's just part of who he is, along with the autism spectrum disorder."<br><br>
This "autistic" child -- because that's what the diagnosis says -- jumped back and forth through an office door, looked directly up at this woman he'd never seen before, and lit up the room with his thousand-watt smile.<br><br>
We went to Starbucks next. He knows the routine there, and he happily sat down at a table of his choice. He pulled out a library book and sat and read to himself while we drank our hot chocolate (for him) and caffe mocha (for me) with whipped cream (for both). For a while, we trade back and forth, reading parts of the book to each other. I ask him questions sometimes, all of which he answers with monosyllabic replies -- "Which cat is that?" "How does the girl feel?" -- but he isn't interested in actual conversation. He rarely is. He keeps his own counsel.<br><br>
On the way out, we were waylaid by Jeeps again. A Liberty, a Rubicon -- he knows them all. He has to approach the parked Jeeps and "go by them." We talked about that one's color: "Red Jeep!" "Really, Adam? I'm thinking it looks purple." "No! Dark red!" "Or brown? Maybe maroon?" "Dark red!!!" See, once he makes up his mind, it's made up for good. Maybe all three-year-olds are like that; I wouldn't know.<br><br>
I'm worried that he'll need a potty soon. I have to guess when he needs one, because he doesn't seem to know when he needs to go. We skedaddled to the town library and made it to the restroom just in time. In the children's room, we settled in next to a shelf of picture books, and he picked out titles that intrigued him, such as "Love You When You Whine." He read the whole book by himself (ignoring my occasional question about it). I wondered, as would his father later tonight, if Adam sees himself in the protagonist's endless troublemaking? "Love you when you pour the cereal all over the floor. Love you when you cut up Mommy's checkbook."<br><br>
He was restless, wandering around the room. Then I hit the jackpot: a trove of Thomas the Tank Engine original stories! Oh yeah! Adam's interest was piqued again. We settled into chairs, and he eagerly read "Percy's Promise" aloud, even when another preschool boy came over and listened (though my son just ignored him). It was a virtuoso performance, with fine diction, appropriate intonation, humor, and very few pronunciation mistakes! I enjoyed listening to him. And no adults were listening or gaping at him, which was fine with me.<br><br>
I had promised him that we could go to a nearby toy store after the library. We gathered our things, dropped off our bag of books and other things in the car, and walked across the street. Predictably, he headed straight for the bin of toy cars. I played with the sweet Folkmanis puppets, occasionally bringing one over to Adam. He acknowledged the monkey puppet for three seconds: "Oh, Curious George!" And then it's back to the cars. (The other puppets, and other kids around him, are not acknowledged at all.)<br><br>
We hadn't been there five minutes when he wet his pants. And his socks. And the floor. Arrrgh! I politely asked for a restroom key, then realize that I've left all his dry clothes in the car. Double arrrgh! We walked all the way back to the car, which couldn't have been comfortable for the poor soaking-wet kid. The rain had started again, too.<br><br>
At the car, I struggled to get him out of the wet clothes. He wouldn't cooperate. He wouldn't stand in the car -- he insisted on standing in the wet parking lot, in the rain. I pulled down his pee-soaked hand-me-down jeans that aren't his. He screamed in my ear. The wet denim got stuck over his foot. He screamed again. I struggled, he struggled, he's half-naked, there are people in this parking lot...<br><br>
Suddenly, he's talking about Jeeps again. Jeeps this, Jeeps that. "I loooove Jeeps!" he says happily. What the hell? Why this sudden emotional switch? Why is he still being a limp noodle as I try to take these wet clothes off of him? Why can't he hold the pee for three minutes? Why can't he ever, EVER, ask me for a freaking bathroom? Why did we get a kid who can't do this really basic stuff, who can't treat other kids like human beings, who's brilliant and amazing and huggy and smiley but can't toilet-train? Why us?<br><br>
I finally yanked off the wet pants and underwear, and this comes unbidden out of my mouth: "I don't care about Jeeps!"<br><br>
And I hate myself for a moment.<br><br>
Slowly and gently, I help Adam into his dry underwear and warmup pants. I fumble with his wet shoes and get them into the car -- I'll put them on him later. I apologize and give him a hug, nuzzling my nose into his damp hair. His unique head smell, the same as when he was a baby, calms me down.<br><br>
We drive home. "I love Jeeps, Mommy," says Adam. "I know, baby," I say, and turn to smile at him. He gives me his thousand-watt smile again. I reach back and gently rub his sock-covered foot, which, for once, he tolerates.<br><br>
"Sorry I got angry, Mommy." Angry? I was the angry one! But he's following a script he learned once. "I'm sorry I was angry, too," I say. He switches to another script, singsong, with a sly grin at the end: "My bad! I made a mistake!" Over and over again. The autism people call this echolalia. I call it adaptive -- he is trying to connect, trying to say what he feels, and he just doesn't have the right words yet. But he tries. He tries so hard.<br><br>
"Love you when you whine!"<br><br>
Of course I do, little love.
