Dec 28, 2005 | Boy Wonder
It makes me a little sad to watch you swim. Three short months ago you were floundering around in the pool: human in water, kindred spirit to fish out of water. Your long arms would reach out to form odd angles before falling as heavy thuds into the water. You would forget to breathe. It didn’t dawn on you to use your feet to stay afloat. Swimming was a strange series of stroke, sink, gasp, and stroke again. It was easy to pick you out in a crowded pool–you were the kid who looked like he was going to drown.
Amazingly, you have managed to put together all the steps of this complicated dance in water. Now, instead of skittering to the play area like crane newly hatched, you stride confidently to the lap pool. You, in your blue swim cap that covers your beloved but chlorine damaged hair. You, with your 60’s inspired tie-dyed goggles strapped snuggly into place. You, in your faded swim trunks that bear the proof of your devotion to your new craft. You have adopted all these swimmerly ways. All those mannerisms of your kind. You adjust your cap and goggles between laps. You blow water from your nose and clear your ears by tilting you head. More steps in the now familiar dance, you seem to know just what to do, just how to enact these rituals of swimming.
In this crowded pool of children splashing and laughing–you alone are intent on swimming UPSTREAM in the lazy river. Perfecting your strokes. Challenging your legs to kick harder. Challenging yourself to be the swimmer you believe yourself to be. And because of this, I can always find you in the crowded pool. You are that solitary blue cap bobbing in and out of the water on a mission to swim against the current. You no longer stand out as a fish out of water but shine in your graceful way of belonging to this water. You are part of it, but distinct even in your belonging.
And me? You can find me where I’ve always been. Watching you learn to swim from behind the thick pane of glass of the viewing room. Smiling and waving when you happen to glance my way. Watching you grow up. Thankful that I can still see the you, you believe yourself to be.
Jun 28, 2005 | Boy Wonder
Jun 21, 2005 | Boy Wonder
Occasionally, behavior is so egregious it must be addressed. Running around the Post Office making a general ass out of yourself after your father has asked to you stop numerous times is to be expected from an eight year old who has been cooped up all day and ignored far too long by the adults in his life. The reasoning, if you can call it that, which runs through Boy Wonder’s brain is very similar to 2nd strike criminals who figure, “Hey, if I get caught I’m going to do TIME, so I might as well make this good!” Basically, he figures he has nothing to lose. He would be wrong.
But, flaunting your behavior in your father’s face once you leave the Post Office, declaring that you knew you had been asked to stop and then shrugging off your behavior in a “What are you going to do about it” smirk is enough to send your father’s blood pressure to the ceiling.
Warning, warning, Boy Wonder… RUN!
We could let the obnoxious behavior slide–the belief that you can get away with anything,
is another matter all together! But what to do? No way, in the middle of the move, am I going to take away the things keeping us all sane. I’m way smarter than that! Parenting experts may suggest creating boredom–but I’m met my child “bored” and I haven’t the stamina. I’ll admit it.
Boredom is how all my china ended up “decorated” with markers. Boredom is how marbles got glued into the pen cubbies on his art desk. Boredom is how the bathroom door ended locked with the bathtub quickly filling with running water. Boy Wonder has expressed an interest in chemistry as of late. NO WAY IN HELL am I going to let this kid get to the bored state right now. No, no, no, no, no.
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Jun 15, 2005 | Boy Wonder, This Life
Boy Wonder, “Does it look better now?” holding scissors in his hand.
“Did you just cut your hair?” (What I’m really thinking is, “OMG, this child just cut. his. hair!”)
“Yeah, it was sticking out.”
“YOU DO NOT CUT YOUR HAIR!” (What I’m really thinking is, “Are you FOUR?”)
“But it was sticking out.”
“YOU DO NOT CUT YOUR HAIR!!!”(What I’m really thinking is, “So you cut
it off? Sure, keep cutting every piece that sticks out and we will have to print you up a bunch of T-Shirts that say, ‘Cancer Survivor'”)
“I didn’t want to look like a girl, mom!”
It was at this point I walked away. It was either that or spit back, “Then try getting a haircut.” Which would have only proved his point.
Jun 9, 2005 | Boy Wonder
“Wow! I’m only a hundred dollars from reaching my goal!” Boy Wonder said when I handed him his earnings from the weekend’s yard sale.
“Oh yeah? Whatcha’ got in mind?” I asked.
“Promise you won’t be mad?”
Now, I’m thinking, what could this child possibly want to buy with that kind of money? I’ve seen his bedroom, trust me when I tell you he wants for little. What, a case of surgery bubble gum? More legos? Perhaps weapons. Oh yeah, he wants weapons.
“Yeah, I promise, ” I lie. I get set to launch into my “anti-violence” speech that includes phrases like, “I KNEW I shouldn’t have let you see that stupid Star Wars movie.”
“Well,” he says with that sly grin he owns so well, “I want to buy you that red Kitchen Aid you want.”
Boy Wonder Needs a Haircut
Jun 6, 2005 | Boy Wonder
Boy Wonder did not “acquire” language until he was 2 and a half. He wasn’t mute, he just relied on other forms of communication to get his point across. Consequently, the stories of him actually
using language tend to be humorous, if rare. Our child was not a poet, he was a man of action.
At the time, I obsessed over it. It didn’t help that we were in a play group with 6 other boys all born within 2 months of each other. The comparisons were unavoidable. Those little boys had vocabularies at 16 months. Real Language. Our child had a language reminiscent of Chinese. In fact, the local Chinese restaurant used to love to have him visit as much for his gusto in eating as for his ability to hold down a conversation with the waiters. They would ask him questions and he would answer back. Not a word of the conversation was in English, but they didn’t seem to mind, and neither did he.
He had inflection and pauses down pat–but none of it made any sense. Pure nonsense. No amount of analysis on our part could distinguish a pattern other than it sounded like spoken language, it just wasn’t. In turn, I spent hours pointing out objects and labeling them only to be met with a look
that seemed to imply I was a little touched to be stating the obvious. He thought he could talk.
When his two year old check-up rolled around I decided it was time to get to the bottom of all this silence. I took him to his pediatrician and while there his doctor did the standard check-up drill. Every time the she would try to put a tongue depressor in his mouth, he would politely take her hand and move it away. After a few minutes of this, I summoned up my courage to ask the question that had brought us there,”Is there a reason he isn’t talking?” She answered, “Probably because he concentrating on perfecting his mobility skills. Which, I have to tell you, are pretty impressive.”
She then went on to explain that a minority of children acquire language differently than the vocabulary building we read about in all those baby manuals. For these kids, labeling is a bit pointless as they are working building concepts not lists. She sent us off with the promise that he would indeed talk, eventually.
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