The Small Family     

Happy New Year to everyone! We’re pretty excited about 2012 around here, for obvious reasons--we get to meet our new son this year! But 2011 was a good year, too, and we have many good memories from it.

We rang in the New Year by sleeping (me and Theo) and working on a side project (Chris). Exciting, huh? We’re getting old… It’s worth noting that this New Year’s Eve marked seven years since Chris and I officially met. (We had seen each other at a birthday party six months earlier but not spoken--I simply took note of him as more of a wallflower than even me!) I asked Chris if he has a seven-year itch, but he claims he doesn’t. ;-)

We actually spent the earlier part of New Year’s Eve this year in the Kaiser emergency room. I suppose the obvious thought is that it would be for me, given that I’m 33 weeks pregnant, but no--it was for Theo. Turned out to be nothing, though. Well, perhaps a small rebellion on his part. The previous night, we had coerced Theo into trying his big-boy bed again (he’s not a big fan), and he complied--though he wasn’t overly happy about it. So we promised him that if he stayed in it until morning, we’d take him somewhere fun on Saturday. Always true to our word, we set out Saturday morning for the Nut Tree--basically a big outdoor play area at a shopping center about an hour from here. We needed new dishes anyway, and there was a Corningware store we wanted to visit right by there. Theo loves the Nut Tree, with its carousel, rocking horses, seesaws, train, and various other kid-friendly activities, so we figured it was a good way to kill two birds with one stone.

Now, let me tell you that Mr. Theo has been traumatized by public bathrooms for a couple of months now. He had a bad experience with a toilet auto-flush scaring the heck out of him while he was on the toilet, and ever since, he has outright refused to go in public. He will hold his urine for up to nine hours to avoid going in public.  And even before that, he tends to only go about every four or five hours, so usually taking him out in public isn’t an issue, despite his phobia regarding public bathrooms.

Well, Saturday was a different story. We had him go potty, left the house, and within an hour he said he had to go. So we stopped at a store I knew would have a kid-friendly bathroom with no auto-flush and no hand dryers (his other nemesis), but he flipped out. Chris and I took turns trying for 15 minutes, and he would not go. He straightens out his legs so you can’t get him to sit on the toilet, and even if you physically bend his knees and force him to sit, he will scream and thrash and fight. He had to go so badly that it was literally starting to drip out of him, and yet he still held it. After 15 minutes of this (and wondering whether the people outside the bathroom thought we were torturing him), we gave up and told him he’d have to hold it until we got home, an hour later. I mean, at that point, what can you do? We were an hour from home, and we have long since stopped carrying a travel potty in the car (though I guess we’ll be going back to that for a while…). We decided to just swing by Corningware, have me run in to pick up the dishes, and then head for home. But when we got there, Chris decided to have Theo try one more time. And lo and behold, after 10 minutes of fighting in the bathroom, stubborn boy finally went.

So, as a reward (because I’m not above bribery when in desperate times), we had promised him a Jamba Juice if he went--and when he did, we honored our promise and got him a Jamba. And we headed for the Nut Tree to continue our planned fun, rather than heading straight home.

The next two hours consisted of Theo having to urgently go to the bathroom six times. Yes, six times in two hours--from the kid who normally only goes about once every four or five hours. And in one instance, the need to go arose so quickly that he wet his pants. (He hasn’t had an accident while awake in over a year, so this is very out of character.) And on the hour drive home, he suddenly had to go again--and so suddenly that he again wet himself, as we couldn’t get to a freeway exit quickly enough.

At that point, I was really beginning to get suspicious that he might have a urinary tract infection. Two accidents in one day, when he hasn’t had one in over a year? Having to urinate urgently six times in two hours, when he normally only goes a few times a day? Screaming and fussing? (I had attributed this to him being freaked out by the public bathrooms--but was he actually having some pain??) So I called Kaiser and asked if we could bring a urine sample to the lab to have it checked for an infection. Well…no. It was New Year’s Eve, and everything was closed. They didn’t even have any pediatricians on staff to consult on the phone. They told us we had to take him to the ER. And so we did. And $100 later, we found out that no traces of bacteria showed up in his urine, and there was no cause for all his urination issues that day. The doctor said to just keep an eye on him, and if the frequent urination continued for a few days, to check back with his pediatrician. But, as he said, “sometimes these symptoms can come on and then just peter out without us ever knowing what caused them.”

Hmmm, strange. I’ve never heard of that, but by today he seemed much better (and was back to only needing to urinate every four hours or so), so I guess it was nothing. Which leads me to believe, knowing my stubborn son, that perhaps it was a little bit of rebellion on his part! I’m not sure whether it was rebellion about being forced to use a public bathroom or whether it was some sort of “I’m going to control this to get back at Mom and Dad for making me sleep in my bed instead of my crib,” but he sure had us going. Ah well, in the long run, I’m just glad he didn’t end up having an infection. He rarely fools me on stuff like that, but he did this time! So now you can see why I was asleep by 10pm--it was a long day!

On New Year’s Day itself, we hosted a little get-together for Grandma Kathy, Papa, Uncle Steve, Aunt Tanya, and Nik. Chris cooked up a real Southern feast: chicken-apple sausage, homemade greens, cornbread from scratch, and black-eyed peas with ham. Delicious!! I’ve never actually had greens (well, one bite from a restaurant once), but they were delicious! And his homemade cornbread was to die for--much better than the box mixes, I must say! Although I really enjoy cooking, it was nice to sit back and let him take the reins!

Chris actually had this week off from work, which was really nice. We accomplished some small projects around the house (cleaning the garage and getting all the bulk trash from our move picked up; choosing a paint color for the baby’s room), took a day trip to Sausalito to the Bay Area Discovery Museum, met up with Aunt Tanya, Uncle Steve, and Nik at the Children’s Discovery Museum in San Jose, and spent a full morning at Kaiser getting Theo’s Asperger’s screening done.

Which leads me to my next subject: Theo’s screening! Kaiser called me on Tuesday afternoon to say they had an opening the next morning, and could we take the appointment? Well, as it turns out, that worked great because Chris was off work, so he could come with us. And I’m pleased to say that overall, the screening gave us a lot of relief. We actually don’t agree with all of it, but I’ll explain that in a moment. Overall, we’re glad we had it done because we have a lot more peace of mind now.

So, the screening was almost three hours, and it consisted of Theo “playing” with a child psychologist and an occupational therapist while we were interviewed by another child psychologist. And then after a short break, Theo went back to playing with the child psychologist while the rest of us went into a separate room and watched through a two-way mirror with a microphone so we could hear what was going on.

So it was a team of three specialists. Chris and I very much liked two of them (one of the child psychologists and the occupational therapist), but we didn’t much care for the second child psychologist. I wish I could remember her name, but I can’t--we’ll call her “pregnant psychologist,” as she happens to be eight months pregnant. The one we did like was named Kelly, and the occupational therapist was Julia.

We liked Kelly and Julia because they seemed to listen to us, listen to Theo, and really be open to discussing what they thought, what our strategies were, etc. Pregnant psychologist seemed to have more of an agenda of “this is how I believe children should be handled--no discussion.” That is, a one-size-fits-all approach to child-rearing and development, which goes against Chris’s and my personal theory that children should be treated as individuals, not as a herd of cattle or something.

All three specialists came to the conclusion that Theo does not have Asperger’s or anything on the autism spectrum. However, they found him to be developmentally behind in fine-motor skills and showing red flags for ADHD.

So this is where we disagree. We fully support the no Asperger’s/autism assessment, but we’re not convinced of the ADHD red flags. And, we think they may not have gotten an accurate assessment of Theo in the fine-motor area. When we observed Theo interacting with pregnant psychologist, it was clear to us that he was bored by the tasks she was asking him to do. And so he wasn’t completing some of them--and we believe it was boredom, not necessarily inability in every case. I could go into the details of why, but that would be tedious--suffice it to say that as his parents, we can tell when he’s bored by something…and he seemed bored.

When they came back and told us he had scored in the 11^th percentile for “nonverbal skills,” we were rather surprised. We asked them to clarify what that meant, and they said it was basically fine-motor skills and went on to describe some of the tests they did that Theo didn’t “pass.” They also said he scored in the 1^st percentile for visual-spatial learning, and we were flabbergasted. Again, they told us what tests they had run, so we knew what their basis for the score was.

But, they said, he scored in the 73^rd percentile for verbal communication--which is on the very high end of the normal range. Indeed, that boy, despite being a semi-late talker, can really communicate!

Their ultimate recommendation was occupational therapy for the fine-motor/visual-spatial skills and behavioral therapy for “behavior issues,” some of which they believe stem from his frustration at being a bit delayed in fine-motor skills. We left there with mixed emotions--relief that he wasn’t found to have Asperger’s or autism, but rather surprised/confused/worried about the fine-motor/visual-spatial issues.

And then we let it sink in, and we got to talking. And we sat down with Theo and tried a few of the tasks he had supposedly failed during the test--drawing a face, putting together a puzzle, copying a pattern with blocks. And do you know what we found? He hated doing every one of them and required much coercion to complete the task…but he could indeed complete it quite well when forced! In other words, we were likely right that he was just bored and refusing to do it. (And actually, when I put him to bed that night and asked him to tell me what he had done at Kaiser, he drily informed me that “we read a boring book.” So clearly he wasn’t overly enthused.)

And as for copying patterns, his preschool teacher emailed me a few weeks ago and mentioned him completing that very task with another child! In that case, she emailed me because she was pleased to see him work with another kid, as he often tends to be a loner, but it was a pattern puzzle they were completing, and he did it. He has some at home here he can do, too--one day he sat and did four of them.

So after thinking about this assessment for days and running a few informal tests of our own on Theo, we’ve come to a conclusion that more than anything, he just doesn’t do things he’s bored with. And we’ve long known this to be true at home, so I think it’s just carrying over to school/testing. We suspect he may be a bit behind in fine-motor skills (indeed, he isn’t overly adept at using utensils yet, and he has real trouble with snaps on his jeans), but we suspect he actually would test higher in that area if he was inclined to cooperate with the tests. In other words, it’s probably not as a big of a deal as they think. We will pursue the occupational therapy, just to get him caught up in that area, but we have a feeling it won’t take much to catch him up.

As for the ADHD signs, this is an informal diagnosis that troubles us. They don’t formally diagnose it until age 6 or 7 anyway, so Kaiser just told us to “keep an eye on it,” but we’re skeptical. ADHD is so heavily diagnosed these days, and the treatment for it is usually drugs, which we are against for children. And both of us are well aware that a lot of the signs of ADHD also happen to be signs of giftedness in children. Given that both Chris and I tested as gifted children, it’s always been in the back of our mind that it could be behind much of Theo’s personality. And lo and behold, while in Barnes & Noble the next day, I turned around and saw a book entitled Bright Not Broken: Gifted Kids, ADHD, and Austim. I picked it up, read the intro, and promptly bought it. I’ve been devouring it ever since. It’s a fascinating book about how giftedness is often misdiagnosed as ADHD, autism, or Asperger’s--and how giftedness also goes hand in hand with some parts of these disorders, but that educators and parents tend to focus on the “problem” (ADHD/autism/etc.) and ignore the giftedness. The authors’ theory is that the gifted aspect of the child should be the focus, with the “problem” secondary (if at all), because may of the behavior issues that are being treated with medications for ADHD are actually just personality traits of the gifted--not requiring medication, but rather simply requiring an appropriate learning/household environment.

To sum it up, the idea is “if your kid is gifted and perhaps has ADHD or whatnot, first find the best environment for gifted learning and see how much that improves what you’re seeing as problems…and then, if there are still issues, tackle the ADHD/autism/etc.”

In the book, they break down the signs of ADHD/autism/giftedness that on the surface are very similar--but they delve far into them and explain how they differ. For example, a child with ADHD will challenge authority because he cannot control his impulses. A gifted child will also challenge authority every bit as much--but it’s because he is very impassioned about something important to him, or he has a relentless need to understand why. And, as the book acknowledges, either way the child needs to learn how to respect authority and question it appropriately (that is, with respect rather than simply by negatively acting out), but the strategy for teaching a child how to do this is different depending on the reason why they’re challenging authority. The differences in many of these signs of ADHD and giftedness are very subtle, but they’re there. And in reading it, I’m seeing Theo fall far more into the gifted category than the ADHD category.

Chris and I are very much on the same page in that we don’t want to stick an ADHD label on Theo and drug him. We’re against medicating children unless absolutely necessary (and I do know that in some cases, it is the only alternative--we just both think Adderall and other ADHD drugs are prescribed a bit too freely these days), and further, we see ADHD as a negative label. That is, if we say, “Theo may have ADHD,” the immediate thought of those who don’t know him is, “Uh oh, kid with behavior problems.” And we don’t see it that way. Yes, Theo is very strong-willed and likes to challenge, but we don’t see him as a behavior problem. In fact, the older he gets, the easier he gets. I don’t think he’ll ever be an easygoing child, but the better he communicates and understands, the easier he gets to handle. The threes have been easier for us than the twos…which were easier than the ones…which were easier than the newborn months.

On the contrary, if we assume that Theo is gifted (which also wouldn’t be formally assessed for a few more years), that doesn’t come with a negative stigma, nor does it come with people advising us to medicate him. And so, we’ve decided that is what we will do. We will parent Theo as if he were gifted, and we will work on strategies for gifted kids. If we find out in a few years that he’s not gifted, what will it have hurt? We will have tried some parenting strategies that were intended for a different type of child, but it won’t have done him any harm. In our eyes, guessing that he’s gifted is far less damaging than following Kaiser’s assumption that “he may be ADHD.” And if he does someday turn out to be ADHD…well, we’ll cross that bridge when we get there. But for now, let’s assume the best, right? Because it very well could be true. And if there’s any validity to the idea of self-fulfilling prophecies, we’d much rather he fulfill a prophecy that he’s gifted than one that he has ADHD! 

The gifted theory actually touches on his fine-motor issues, too. I’ve learned that gifted kids very often have what’s called “asynchronous development”--that is, they are way ahead in certain areas but may fall far behind in certain others. And the Kaiser specialists expressed surprise that his verbal ability is so high, whereas his nonverbal is much lower--they said the range was pretty wide. So I’m wondering whether this is just an example of asynchronous development--Theo’s brain has been so busy developing his strengths (math, music, language arts) that it has faltered a bit on fine-motor skills.

I have a meeting with his preschool teachers on Wednesday to discuss all of this, so I’ll be curious to hear their thoughts, but I have a feeling they’re going to say they haven’t noticed a significant fine-motor delay, either. Neither preschool even once mentioned that to me, and if he was really that far behind, I’m quite sure one of the two (if not both) would’ve brought it to our attention.

So that’s the scoop on Theo. Once we let everything settle in our brains, we actually felt very good about it. Now I’m a mom with a mission--to investigate schools for gifted children in the area and see what our educational options for K-12 (or 1-12 if he goes to kindergarten at his preschool) are. And if I’m wrong--well, I will have only wasted time. But if I’m right, I will have done Theo a big favor by helping him find an environment where his learning style is appreciated rather than being seen as potentially problematic. I have a very strong feeling that in the right learning environment, Theo will settle into being a very capable, happy student. I’ve already seen it a lot at preschool, even though we do have some issues to work on--and I want to continue to see that. It is now my mission! Luckily, the East Bay provides a lot of schooling options--although many of them come at a real cost. Perhaps we should start playing the lottery?!

Before I forget, if you didn’t already see this entry on our other blog, check out http://smallpeanuts.blogspot.com/2011/12/why-my-son-rocks-my-socks.html. Theo had some amusing moments at his evaluation. ;-)

In other fun Theo news, his latest joy is to play his guitar along with whatever CD he’s listening to. Occasionally he sings along, but most often he likes to play the guitar along with it. This week we’re trying another music class--but in this one, the kids get to sort of “jam” together while playing real musical instruments. I’m really excited to see how he likes it. I personally think it looks like a lot of fun!

Before I sign off, a Garbanzo update! He is now about 4 ½ pounds and still as active as ever. He’s opening and closing his eyes now, and he can differentiate between night and day (because believe or not, light does penetrate the uterus!). He has also now developed his own immune system, which is huge in terms of his ability to remain healthy when outside the womb. I am now confident that if he were born tomorrow, he would be fine. I think the survival rate at this point is something like 98%. Hooray!!