Monday, July 30, 2012

This is going to be a LONG one, but it'll be worth it. Promise.




Connor is our firstborn.  Before him, we could only guess at what it would be like to be parents.  Like so many other generations of naive and childless young adults , we felt we had a fairly sturdy plan of attack ready when it came to raising our future kiddos ("MY child will NEVER behave that way in public!" Etc.).  Sure, we didn't know it all, but we felt we had enough experience around kids (both of us have a small background in childcare) to handle the basics.  After a bit of a rocky start at conceiving, we were delighted to learn we'd be having a little boy, and I set about doing countless "important" things like choosing a theme for the nursery and scrawling copious side notes in my cherished copy of What To Expect When You're Expecting.  I memorized how to diaper, bathe, feed and swaddle, and every centimeter of that nursery was sparkling perfection by the time we neared the due date.  Then Connor was born.  Suddenly, absolutely nothing I knew was right.  Connor cried that first night he was born.  All night.  He cried the next morning, slept two hours, then picked right back up where he left off.  This continued for nearly the duration of our hospital stay.  I was amazed at his stamina. But he was a beautiful, perfect baby and all ours, and I was completely in love with him, whether he howled like a cat or not.  We brought him home.  The crying continued at intervals, especially at night, and he never slept more than two or three hours at a stretch.  I wanted to deny that my precious bundle had colic, but the truth was there.  I could do very little to soothe his little tummy; he would have to outgrow it himself.  Sometimes the two of us would sit up in the middle of the night, crying together.
The colic did diminish with time, but his refusal to sleep never did.  As Connor got older, other peculiarities emerged, like his absolute intolerance of bright lights (riding in the car on a sunny day was always an adventure) and loud noises (fireworks were especially traumatizing).  At six months, I introduced solid food into his diet, which he received with absolute rejection.  His pediatrician assured me that some kids simply prefer the warmth and comfort of breastfeeding over a cold spoon, and he encouraged me to keep offering it.  After several months of our battling and getting nowhere, however, Doctor Dudgeon's pen was poised to recommend an evaluation for sensory integration problems. I left the office with a name and phone number.  The next morning, Connor decided to allow me to feed him a few spoonfuls of rice cereal.  We cancelled the appointment.
Despite Connor's "opinionated" nature, he was a wonderful kid.  Clearly a bright bulb.  He studied our mouths and imitated the sounds we made, and at barely eight months, he said his first word: "Doggie."  The first time he said it, it came out more like "Guck."  He was pointing at the dog.  I thought it was cute, but at first I didn't recognize that he was trying to communicate.  After several more "gucks," it became apparent to me that he was trying to call the dog.
"Do you mean 'dog,' Connor?  Doggie?"
"Doggie," he responded with startling clarity.  Holy cow.  After that, he learned 3-5 words a week.  He was speaking complete sentences well before his first birthday.  At 16 months, he recognized every letter of the alphabet.  At 2, he began reading.  At 3, he was able to read from the Bible.  He was obsessed with letters and words, their shapes, their meanings, everything. 
"Obsessed," in fact, quickly became the perfect buzz word for Connor.  It started with the alphabet.  Then it was trucks--at 18 months old he memorized the names of about 50 trucks in his favorite board book.  I enjoyed watching people's jaws hit the floor when he lisped "That's a combine harvester truck right there."  As a preschooler, it was all things biology.  He knew about blood cells and their functions, he could list off various systems of the body and which organs did what.  He was known to flip his preschool coloring pages over and draw DNA double helix models.  The boy was driven.  We were sure he was going to blow the lid off when he reached grade school.
Then we started getting frequent expressions of concern from his teachers:

"Connor doesn't want to join the rest of the class in our activities.  He prefers to do his own thing and he is resisting following instructions."

We already knew he was headstrong.  His tantrums at home could be earth-shattering.  But was it really as big a deal as they were implying?

"Connor has considerable difficulty transitioning from one activity to the next." 

"Connor insists on using the bathroom stall by the wall and will have a meltdown if we make him use a different one."

"He contradicts his teacher." 

All frustrating, albeit slightly amusing...but then things got a little worse:

"Connor cut another boy with scissors during craft time this morning, quite on purpose and unprovoked.  When he was told that he had hurt the child, he did not seem remorseful."

_________________

It was unusual.  Horrifying.  And Connor did not seem to understand what the big deal was.  Red flags were flying around my head like dust particles.  I wanted to panic.  I felt like a bad mom.  Was I raising a sociopath?  We began a series of tests on Connor, measuring everything from attention span to IQ.  After it all came to a conclusion, there was no conclusion.  We were advised to get Connor enrolled in public school as soon as possible, to alleviate his apparent boredom and steer his unoccupied mind toward more constructive pursuits.  We were assured that we had a well-adjusted, very advanced young fellow on our hands, whose frustration with his lack of academic challenge finally got the best of him.  Friends and family all cheered.  "See, I told you he was just bored."  Something in my heart remained unsettled.

Fast forward a year and a half.  Here we are, poised to tackle second grade.  Connor's done a great deal of growing up since we plunked him into that Kindergarten class mid-year.  Going to "big school" really did help him, and we saw a lot of the emotional issues diminish.  But a few things I observed continued to bug me:

  •   The way he remained disinterested in participating in social groups unless they were playing his favorite game of "Sonic Tag."
  • The way he prattled on and on about a particular topic, whether anyone was really listening to him or not.
  • The way a small error in a drawing or story he was composing could send him into complete meltdown.
  • How he would often close his eyes in public if he felt that too many people were staring at him.
  • How uncomfortable he was with hugs, even when shared with familiar people
  • How difficult he found it to relate to/interact with his baby brother, even though his deep pride and love was evident in other ways.

A conversation I had with a friend of mine as well as an online article I happened to stumble across caused me to revisit a possibility I had refused to consider from the beginning, although it's been there all along, haunting me:

This child could have Asperger's Syndrome.

If you're unfamiliar with this disorder, it's actually a mild form of autism.  Sufferers are often of average or above average intelligence, and it's characterized by a bizarre set of social oddities.  Reading the description made me feel like someone had been observing my child prior to writing it.

I feel so strongly that we could be headed toward a diagnosis with Connor.  And something about that makes me feel oddly encouraged.  Maybe because now we can move forward with a purpose.  I want so much to help him be the best Connor he can be.  He definitely challenges me to be the best Mom I can be.



Sunday, July 29, 2012

What year is this?

I just spent the last hour reading over the collected posts from the past few years.   My heart is so warm right now.  So much I had completely forgotten about!  Amazing to look back at a time when a certain set of troubles seemed the only ones in the world...to see how they worked themselves out...to see how we're on to the next thing and the next by now...to remember the little funny things the kids said...the highs, the lows...so that's what's up with the whole "journaling" thing, huh?  Pretty cool.

Concepts are often lost on me. 

I could list the reasons I abandoned this blog, but they just don't seem as justifiable as they used to...so I'm determined to pick back up.  I know I'll thank myself at the end of another four or five years.  To be quite honest, this blog's more for me than anybody else (take THAT, all 2 of my readers!!  Sorry, Mom.), and I need a place to deposit my thoughts.  So I'm giving this a go again.  Why, thank you, Self.  I do enjoy reading your prose.  Oh, that's mighty kind of me.  Think nothing of it.  It's all for Posterity.  Posterity?  Who's she?  I thought I was your one and only.  Joke's wearing thin, Medlin.  Move on.

A year and a half ago was my last post.  A little over 18 months.  I had a budding Kindergartener and a proud little preschooler then, and I thought my life was full enough.  If anybody had told me I'd be one kid richer the next time I sat down to type something here, I'd have plotzed.  Yet here I sit, mother of three.  And it just feels right.  Let me introduce you to the 2012 model Medlin:

You don't have to say it.  I know.  I know he's the most gorgeous stack of tires you will ever lay eyes on.  You can't have him.

Isn't it incredible how someone can come into your life and fill a hole you didn't even know was there (How did I not notice a hole that chunky)?  Sawyer is simply the whipped topping on our family sundae.  He's a happy, laid-back guy who enjoys sitting upright, gnawing objects, and generally making us melt when he smiles.  We're all twitterpated but his big sister's got a crush on him something fierce.  She breezes right past Mom and Dad first thing every morning, to smother him with kisses.  We're chopped liver.  It's ok.

I still have a budding Kindergartener, but it's my girl this time. If I thought transitioning her to a big-girl bed was rough on my tender heart those years ago, it was nothing compared to the Big K.  You'd think I'd be old hat at this milestone by now, having already parented a grade-schooler for more than a year.  Oddly, it seems more difficult this time.  Maybe it was the unconventional manner in which we placed Connor in school that made it less bittersweet with him.  We scarcely had time to wax nostalgic.  This time, I've had plenty of time to browse painfully thru Mia's baby pictures and her crayon artwork.  I've videotaped her preschool graduation and we have read her every "Kindergarten, Here I Come!" children's book the library keeps in stock. School starts in 2 weeks.  She is so ready.  I wish I was.





And my oldest child has become a bookend.  He's half of the collective I refer to as "the boys," a phrase which, nearly 7 months in, still feels a tad foreign on my tongue. He's handled his new role as Big Brother Squared with quiet finesse.  Although he isn't as affectionate with Sawyer as Mia, he is bursting with pride, as is evident in his many illustrated autobiographies, all of which detail how awesome the baby is and most of which get passed around at school and family functions.  Occasionally, I will catch him doing something adorable like having a matter-of-fact conversation with his little brother about how to construct a paper airplane. Sawyer thinks he hung the moon.


At seven, Connor's a mess and a half.  He is an imp.  He's complex, smart, mischievous, and innovative. Still every bit the challenge to parent he was at three, but always a marvel.  These days you'll probably find him pawing thru my recyclables for things to make into "inventions."  Friday, he told me he was working up designs for a "sweat collector," so he could find out how much sweat he lost every day.  I asked him to estimate how much he thought that would be, and he replied, "Well, Mom, that's going to depend on certain factors.  Like whether or not I play outside and how hot it is. If I spend all day in front of the Wii it's going to be a lot less than if I go outside and run."  Insights like these are exactly why I adore this special kid.  Oddly, conversations like these (and other things I've noticed), have also inspired a few revelations for me recently.  I'll talk more about that in my next post.

It's good to be back.  :-)