LJ Idol Season 9, Week 26: Crabs in a Barrel
He plays with blocks, his little face scrunched in concentration as he pieces them together and takes them apart, over and over until satisfied. He then drags the small block stack across the floor, leaving tracks in the carpet.
He's never played with his blocks appropriately before a couple of weeks ago. To this day, he lines them up, often grouped by pairs, colors matching and progressing through the color scale. For him, that's normal. That's fun. It's how his world has always been, sorted by color, size, and shape.
Eventually, he tires of the blocks and returns to me. He climbs onto the couch and throws himself across my lap, all forty pounds of him. He nuzzles his face against my arm, all smiles as he starts speaking. It takes me a minute, but when he cries, “QUACK!” I realize what’s happening.
“You’re a duck,” I tell him, and he just smiles wider.
“Mooooo!”
“A cow!”
I’m rewarded with a bigger smile, and he buries his face against my arm again before he turns to look at me, blue eyes lit up with mirth. “COCKLE-DOODLE-DO!”
“A rooster!”
“Neigh neigh!”
And he continues like this, the exchange simple and the goal to test Mommy’s ability to name the animals -- all of them featured in the book, “The Very Busy Spider,” by Eric Carle. It’s not one of his favorites; it certainly isn’t “The Lorax,” or “Flat Stanley and the Firehouse,” or even, “Older Than the Stars,” which has become his newest favorite book, no. But I’ve read it to him within the past week, and it amazes me, the things he retains.
The whole time, his eyes are on mine, and his smile never fades. Eventually, he switches the topic to colors -- “Colors? The color book?”
“Do you want your colors book?”
No answer, but his focus still hasn’t shifted from me.
“Bob, if you want your colors book, it’s on your bookshelf in your room.”
Bob pauses, then sits upright, gets off my lap, and walks out of the living room and down the short hall. Rummaging is heard, coming from the general direction of his bedroom. He returns a few minutes later, a large book in his hands. Immediately, he climbs back into my lap, back facing me, as he begins to turn the pages.
“I love blue!” he says. His fingers are stretched over the pages dedicated to items colored in various shades of blue, and his little voice breaks out into a song he probably picked up from preschool or youtube.
Music, colors, shapes, numbers, and letters. Those are the boy’s areas of interest. Those are the things that he is motivated to learn; but he’s exhausted the knowledge a kindergartener is supposed to know. He writes words like, “red,” and “x-ray.” He reads various sight words and some words he shouldn’t even know (“Vizio,” on the bottom edge of my brother’s television).
Yet he refuses to write or spell his own name, nine times out of ten.
His teachers and his therapists (occupational and speech) are an amazing group of women. Women who adore him and want to see him succeed. And his classmates --
His classmates approach his teacher, crying, “Ms. Em, Ms. Em, Bob just said what he wanted!” or “Bob let me play next to him!” or, “Bob just took off his bookbag without being told!”
These children -- some neurotypical and others with delays similar and vastly different from Bob’s -- they are the ones who touch me the most. Because while I love my son for all of his quirks and eccentricities, I know the world he will soon be thrust into is one that is not so kind and understanding. I am always quick to tell my friends and coworkers that my child isn’t “normal.” That his speech is delayed, that his understanding of social concepts is very limited, that he can’t even manage to say, “Hi,” and “Bye,” unless it’s to his bus, every afternoon.
Instead of pulling my child down for being different, these children are there, cheering him on every step of the way. These children help him get back on his feet. Help him communicate his needs to the adults around him. They’re pushing him forward. Helping him understand how the world works and the expectations that’ll be placed on him as he grows older.
Hopefully, they’ll continue to show him the way.
He's never played with his blocks appropriately before a couple of weeks ago. To this day, he lines them up, often grouped by pairs, colors matching and progressing through the color scale. For him, that's normal. That's fun. It's how his world has always been, sorted by color, size, and shape.
Eventually, he tires of the blocks and returns to me. He climbs onto the couch and throws himself across my lap, all forty pounds of him. He nuzzles his face against my arm, all smiles as he starts speaking. It takes me a minute, but when he cries, “QUACK!” I realize what’s happening.
“You’re a duck,” I tell him, and he just smiles wider.
“Mooooo!”
“A cow!”
I’m rewarded with a bigger smile, and he buries his face against my arm again before he turns to look at me, blue eyes lit up with mirth. “COCKLE-DOODLE-DO!”
“A rooster!”
“Neigh neigh!”
And he continues like this, the exchange simple and the goal to test Mommy’s ability to name the animals -- all of them featured in the book, “The Very Busy Spider,” by Eric Carle. It’s not one of his favorites; it certainly isn’t “The Lorax,” or “Flat Stanley and the Firehouse,” or even, “Older Than the Stars,” which has become his newest favorite book, no. But I’ve read it to him within the past week, and it amazes me, the things he retains.
The whole time, his eyes are on mine, and his smile never fades. Eventually, he switches the topic to colors -- “Colors? The color book?”
“Do you want your colors book?”
No answer, but his focus still hasn’t shifted from me.
“Bob, if you want your colors book, it’s on your bookshelf in your room.”
Bob pauses, then sits upright, gets off my lap, and walks out of the living room and down the short hall. Rummaging is heard, coming from the general direction of his bedroom. He returns a few minutes later, a large book in his hands. Immediately, he climbs back into my lap, back facing me, as he begins to turn the pages.
“I love blue!” he says. His fingers are stretched over the pages dedicated to items colored in various shades of blue, and his little voice breaks out into a song he probably picked up from preschool or youtube.
Music, colors, shapes, numbers, and letters. Those are the boy’s areas of interest. Those are the things that he is motivated to learn; but he’s exhausted the knowledge a kindergartener is supposed to know. He writes words like, “red,” and “x-ray.” He reads various sight words and some words he shouldn’t even know (“Vizio,” on the bottom edge of my brother’s television).
Yet he refuses to write or spell his own name, nine times out of ten.
His teachers and his therapists (occupational and speech) are an amazing group of women. Women who adore him and want to see him succeed. And his classmates --
His classmates approach his teacher, crying, “Ms. Em, Ms. Em, Bob just said what he wanted!” or “Bob let me play next to him!” or, “Bob just took off his bookbag without being told!”
These children -- some neurotypical and others with delays similar and vastly different from Bob’s -- they are the ones who touch me the most. Because while I love my son for all of his quirks and eccentricities, I know the world he will soon be thrust into is one that is not so kind and understanding. I am always quick to tell my friends and coworkers that my child isn’t “normal.” That his speech is delayed, that his understanding of social concepts is very limited, that he can’t even manage to say, “Hi,” and “Bye,” unless it’s to his bus, every afternoon.
Instead of pulling my child down for being different, these children are there, cheering him on every step of the way. These children help him get back on his feet. Help him communicate his needs to the adults around him. They’re pushing him forward. Helping him understand how the world works and the expectations that’ll be placed on him as he grows older.
Hopefully, they’ll continue to show him the way.