Thursday, April 1, 2010

His Name is James


This is my son. His name is James, he is just going on two, and he has some issues. We're working on them.

This blog is dedicated to him. It may not always be about him, precisely - he has a sister (The Devil in Pink Pajamas) who tends toward the dramatic already at age 3, and a brother (Number One Son) who is amazing and crazy creative in his own right, and a father and numerous relatives and, of course, a mother just this side (or was it that side?) of sane... and all of us tend to get into things that might seem blogworthy to me, so we might show up to take over from time to time. I make no guarantees. But today we had our very first Early Intervention Services evaluation, and James became, for the first in what I know will be a very long series of times, officially and on paper, developmentally delayed.

Obviously, I knew this, or they wouldn't have been in my house.

And, hey, I didn't spend 15 years of my life working with OTHER people's developmentally delayed children not to recognize one when he's sitting in my recliner flapping his hands and hooting like a barn owl on Starbucks because.. well, just because.

And may all the gods ever imagined or ever to be help the idiot who gets in my way as I get him every service available to help him become the best, happiest James he can be.

But most of all, gods help the person who forgets that at the end of the day, he is not a diagnosis, he is not a behavior, he is not a case, case number, or even an autistic (or whatever diagnosis they eventually settle on) child. He is James. A person. He has preferences. A sense of humor. He is wily and silly and snuggly and cranky and sleepy-eyed and patient with his dumb ole mom, who can't understand that "Ahhh" means "my feet are cold" while "Ahhhh" means "Hey lady, what do I have to do to get some food around here?! I'm freakin' starving over here! Can a guy get a chicken nugget??"

My son has a name. It is not autism, it is not special needs, and it is not developmental delay. They may be his forever like his big blue eyes and his finely-honed sense of merriment when he's naughty... but they are not HIM.

And I love him. With all of it.

So Jamesy... this one's for you, from Momma. And I swear I will see to it that one day you can read it.


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