Short-Attention-Span Post

1. I've been using club soda as a glass cleaner ever since reading up on ways to reduce my use of harsh chemicals. I picked up a liter of the stuff today, to refill the spray bottles upstairs and downstairs. I have more than half a liter left, so I poured a glass of it over some ice and am sipping it. All I keep thinking is, "I'm drinking glass cleaner. Something's wrong here."

2. It's time, we've decided, to start taking N's golf to the next level. The first step is to ask the director at the golf academy where he takes his weekly lessons what that next level is. The next step is for me to get over this feeling that I'm becoming "one of those moms" by actively trying to see how far he might be able to take this. (He's good; he's probably very good. We just can't objectively determine HOW good he is. But if the amount of interest he's garnered from the folks at the academy is any indication, it's something worth pursuing with him.) So far, I've tried to counteract my natural desire not to 'push' by reminding myself that if there's any kid out there who needs to have an area in which he legitimately excels, it's N. If getting him there takes some shoving to move him past his fears and anxieties about trying new things and competing and following rules? I'll have to learn how to shove. Or I'll make Baroy shove.

3. I started the weekend by making a list of about a dozen very specific chores I wanted to accomplish: Making a batch of iced coffee so I don't end up buying it at Starbucks all the time. Working with N to clean off the top of his dresser, which we haven't had all cleared off probably in several years. Washing the windows in his room. Making broth out of the chicken carcass from dinner a few days ago. Cleaning out the fridge. Doing laundry. Washing down the kitchen chairs. Returning library books. Trimming the lemon and tangerine trees. Clearing the dead stuff out of our front garden. Clearing off my desk. Organizing my files.

N's dresser is clear, his windows washed, his curtains in the laundry (which is about a third done). I made the iced coffee yesterday, and the chicken broth is in the oven not-quite-bubbling right now. The trees are trimmed. The library book is returned.

The fact that I completed almost half the items on my list? I am calling this weekend a Huge Success.

Breaking News, Via Text Message

Baroy: They just had to pick partners in golf. N grabbed a kid and told him they were partners.

Me: Get OUT of here!

Baroy: The kid's name is C.

Me: How old is he?

Baroy: About the same age. N just got 10 points, as did C, then walked over to C, slapped his hand and said, "Way to go, Dude!"

Me: That is not my son! Where did my son go?

Baroy: C and N just won the little contest. Coach is impressed by the way he hits out of the sand.

Me: Whoever this pod N is, make sure you bring him home, not the old one.

Baroy: He's also volunteering to do things.

Baroy again: I could probably leave and he wouldn't even notice.

You know, there's progress, and then there's not even fathomable behavior. Not running behind Baroy or the coach's legs when another child asked to team up with him would have been progress. Going up to one of the bigger kids, one of the 13 or 14 year old kids and asking to be their partner would have been big progress. But this? Taking the initative with a PEER? Seriously? I don't get it. Where does this stuff COME from? And how can I make sure it sticks around?

I always thought golf would be good for him, but I never thought it would do THIS. I am literally sitting here with tears in my eyes as each text message comes in.

That kid. That incredible kid. He really CAN do anything.

At Golf Class

Not only is he half the size of everyone else, he's also twice as good. And that's a completely objective opinion.

Maybe It's Me

That's the treehouse Baroy built for N (and Em), which he had mostly completed, but totally finished last night after we got back from New York. I would never have expected N to be willing to climb up there--it's HIGH--but he did, and he loved it. That's him reading to Baroy. If that isn't the sweetest thing ever, I don't know what is.

There's been this niggling feeling at the back of my brain for a while now...a feeling that maybe the only real 'problem' that N has is me.

No, this is not me looking for sympathy and cries of, "Oh, no! You're a wonderful mother." That's not what I mean. I know I'm a wonderful mother--as wonderful as I, an inherently flawed human being, am capable of being. Which half the time means I truly suck at this. But no more than the next person.

What I mean is that I wonder if I just kept my mouth completely shut--didn't talk to his teachers at the beginning of the school year, didn't ask for assessments, didn't constantly 'explain' his quirks to other people the minute they appear (or even before they do), didn't even spend a ridiculous amount of bandwidth talking about this issue and that issue right here on this blog--how many people would notice anything being truly amiss. If I didn't tell people there was something wrong, give them something to look for...would they even notice?

I started thinking about this a lot more near the end of the school year, after having a conversation with the mother of a boy who N had really become friendly with--so friendly that he was actually playing at recess, rather than sitting on the bench all by himself every single day. I said something to her about much I appreciated what Joey was doing for N, and she said, "And vice versa, of course." And I just automatically poo-poo'ed her, saying something along the lines of, "Well, yes, but with N's issues, it's been hard for him to..." and trailed off as I noticed her looking at me like I was speaking another language. Because, of course, I was talking about her son as if he were some kind of occupational therapist who had identified N's social deficits and was instituting a carefully considered plan to integrate him into classroom activities...when all he really is is a kid who likes to play Indiana Jones with N after lunch. Period. He doesn't know N has issues. As far as he's concerned, N doesn't HAVE any issues. (Well, actually, that's not entirely true. Their teacher told me he asked once or twice about why N always needs her to tell him what he's doing is OK, and why N won't read out loud and things like that. But that only muddies my point, so let's pretend that's not the case, OK?)

There have been a couple of other incidents as well. Friends who have treated him differently after I talked to them about my concerns, when otherwise they might have never considered him as 'different' or needing more than they're capable of giving. That sort of thing. But it all really became worrisome to me during this recent visit to New York.

We had a wonderful time, I need to say right here, because both my mother and sister read this, and I don't want either of them thinking we didn't. Or that I was unhappy about way things turned out during our week there. Everything was perfect. So perfect that it made me think.

See, the overriding comment about N last week was this: "He's so much better than I thought he'd be." And, of course, the only reason anyone would think he'd be "not better" is because of what I say and what I imply and how much I talk about this and that and the other thing. But maybe that's not true. Maybe I need to let everyone figure out who N is and what's going on with him on their own, in their own way. Maybe I need to shut up and not speak until spoken to.

Maybe I need to let N learn how to just be N, without me interpreting who he is for the world around him.

Yeah. Like that's ever going to happen.

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A complete aside: As I type this, Baroy took N to the golf course for his first lesson of the summer session. We weren't sure if he would get the same coach he had last session, an older African-American man named Al who is just wonderful for N, and who takes absolutely NO CRAP from any of the 7- to 14-year-olds in this class. We were hoping for him, because N learned so much from him last session and because he takes N very seriously as a golfer.

Anyway, I just got a series of three text messages from Baroy.

The first: "N got Al again. Al asked me if N had grown."

The second: "Actually, what he said was, 'He don't look so short anymore.'"

The third: "Gotta love Al."

I totally love Al. Al rocks. And, better yet, Al just made me smile. I needed that smile.

$1

N's been taking golf lessons for a little over a year now. About a month ago, he graduated from the beginner's group--which had kids 5, 6, and 7 years of age--to the 'juniors' group, which has kids between the ages of 7 and 14.

Today, when he came home from his hour-and-a-half lesson, he came running in to me, waving a dollar bill. "Look what I won!" And behind him came Baroy, simply grinning.

"Tell Mommy how you got that," Baroy said.

At which point N starting saying something about chipping and "that girl" and "and I won!"

Apparently, at the end of class today, the teacher told each kid to grab one ball. He put them behind a line and told them to chip onto the green, and the kid who got closest to the hole would win a dollar.

That kid? That would be N.

I know that pretty much every parent of every kid who ever picks up a golf club and enjoys it thinks that kid is going to be the next Tiger Woods. I'm no exception. N's innate talent at this game is scary. It's scarier still when you think about the fact that he has fine-motor deficits, and that the sorts of other issues he has are often paired with gross motor delays as well. And, in fact, he actually has some gross motor delays. They just don't visibly affect his golf game.

Look. I know there's no crystal ball here. I know he may turn out to be nothing more than a kid who enjoys playing this particular game. But, today, my child--the one whose teacher thinks needs more help than he's getting, the one whose occupational therapist is concerned about, the one who doesn't go through his days racking up successes on a regular basis--chipped his ball closer to the hole than seven other kids, all bigger and older and more experienced than he is. And he got a dollar for doing so.

My 7-year-old earned a dollar playing golf today. Even if it turns out to be his last, I think that's awfully cool.