Boys will be boys

Would you look at what my guy did to his perfect little face?

I'm not really sure how it happened, but I know that every one of those bruises corresponds to one of the slats of his crib. Either he slept with his face squished against the side of the crib, or he had a serious headbanging session in the middle of the night.

Then there was also earlier this week when I undressed him to find enormous raspberries all over his belly. He had given himself carpet burns from the industrial carpet at the church by trying to crawl away while Bear held his ankles.

Or there was once during Christmas time I turned the corner to discover he somehow managed to tear a bunch of my handmade paper ornaments off the tree and rip them into pieces.

I probably shouldn't take pleasure in these kinds of things, but I can't help myself. Even when it's inconvenient or unpleasant, the appearance of normality is just wonderful.

I often get into conversations with other moms where they talk about how their kids make them crazy. The messes they make, the hilarious things they say, the crazy daredevil tricks they come up with, including creative ways to inflict bumps and bruises. For most of the time I've been a mom I was just an audience to these kinds of stories. Smiling and laughing, pretending I understand, knowing that if I was going to share a story about how Atticus makes me crazy it would be something like, "Oh it makes me so crazy when he fights me about putting braces on his legs!" or "I tried and tried to get him to drink from a cup and finally he pushed it away and made me spill it all over myself."

I tend to think these stories fit the flow of the conversation, but they usually result in other moms cocking their heads and clucking in pity. It's not the same. It's not inconsequential. It's not a funny little diversion from a happy normal life, it's a peek into a life where what makes the average mom frustrated is the base level I operate at. That's how it seems to them anyway, because they don't always see how happy and normal we often are.

So when something happens, even if it's bruises on his perfect face or destroyed Christmas ornaments, that actually fits with what the other kids are doing, I rejoice. I have a story to share! I don't have to scare all the other moms with the ghost stories of disability. I have something inconsequential to say. He's just as big a pain in the neck as all the other kids.

My willful child: in pictures.

I don't like hats.




Mom! I don't like hats! Leave me alone!




Get it off me! I DON'T LIKE HATS!




Why are you torturing me? LEAVE ME ALONE!




This is all you're getting. Take your stupid picture.

Fashion show! Fashion show! Fashion show at lunch!

One benefit to having had Atticus much later than most of my friends had their kids, is that once everyone decides they're done with kids and ready to give stuff away for good, I'm here with open arms waiting to receive it. A couple months ago one of my very favorite cousins, Karen, was cleaning out the well appointed closets of her two little boys and gifted me with two garbage bags full of clothes. Then my sister-in-law Mari did the same thing. This little guy has more clothes than I do.

And Mari and Karen both have great taste, so he wears way more stylish clothes than I do too. Although given that half of my wardrobe is made up of yoga pants, that's probably not saying too much.

Here are a few of my favorites:

This shirt makes his eyes look so green, and the little madras pants have just the right amount of "little man" look mixed with the whimsy of "little boy."

This picture also illustrates why I've called him "Mr. Baby" since I met him. He's always been like an adult trapped in a tiny body.


I'm partial to "little rocker" clothes myself, as opposed to the "little surfer" look I see so often around here. Even if Atti could walk I don't think he'd be a surfer. He's a rocker to the core. From his early mohawk, to his obsession with music, to that stubborn little attitude he sports. This shirt has a silkscreened tie with a little faux button on it that says "Punk". Combined with the thin wale corduroys, he looks like the lead singer of ACDC to me.


This is my favorite shirt he's ever owned. A guitar with wings on the front, and then those sleeves. The sleeves!


They're tattoo sleeves!

I make him wear this shirt whenever it's clean.

The sad fact is that we've been given so many clothes, he might not even get around to wearing them all. But that means that once he grows out of them they'll still be in such great condition we can spread the good fortune around.

Tomorrow I'll share what I made Karen as a thank you present.

Atti and his Entourage

We just finished up a big meeting where a bunch of the people who help Atti get care all get together in a room and discuss how he's doing and what we want him to do better, and like any good blogger I couldn't let them leave without snapping a picture.

I give thanks at least once a day that I live in California, where early intervention is such a high priority and the state funds such amazing programs, but I also give thanks for the amazing team of people I'm surrounded by who want nothing but the best for Atticus and show him such genuine love and care.

One of the questions they ask in this meeting is, "Who gives your family the support you need." They want to make sure you're not dealing with everything on your own. That you have family or friends, a community, helping you to deal with all the responsibilities that come with a child with special needs. It took me a second to come up with an answer that wasn't, "Well, I've got you guys!"

I almost wish every mother could have their very own team of specialists. There have been so many times when I felt like I didn't know what I was doing and there were all these people who were there to help me figure it out. When I start to beat myself up I have a team that shows me how much I'm doing. When I worry that I'm not getting it right, there is a line of people telling me how I am.

I don't have a mom or grandma to provide those encouraging voices. My sisters all live far away. But we still have our team, cheering us on, recognizing every little progression, strengthening my resolve. It is such a gift.

Neverending Mama Guilt

After naming my child Atticus you'd probably assume that I take him to the library every day, that we lounge around bookstores in our free time, that he's already worked his way through the entire Seuss oeuvre. Not so much.

Oh it's a sad fact of life that there are only so many hours in a day, and we all must pick and choose what we're going to spend our time on. And even the most virtuous non-time-wasters still have to decide what good thing they're going to have to do without. There's just. too. much. to do. And for us, for now, the thing that we're doing without is a ton of time reading books and out exploring the world.

Up until now, I haven't felt too bad about it. I'm pretty realistic with myself and I've learned to say no over the years. I wouldn't have thought I'd take it so personally that I can't do everything, but now I'm starting to worry if I'm impacting his development.

He jabbers constantly, way way more than many of his friends, but his ratio of actual words is probably lower. And after last week's zoo trip it got me thinking that maybe he could do more if I spent more time exposing him to more. Maybe if I was constantly reading to him, or taking him out to explore one new place after the other, maybe he would be able to talk and interact more. Maybe I'm inflicting my homebody-ness on him and he would be better off if I came up with a different approach. So then I get weepy and beat myself up for a while.

But then I have to remind myself that language is not the only issue we're dealing with, and that's one that he'll probably, almost definitely, be able to catch up on, and that it's far more important to address his physical needs. But since that is somewhat easier for me, seeing as it involves a whole lot of floor time and getting him to crawl around the house - which Gizmo takes care of for me, I naturally tell myself that I'm just taking the easy way out.

I suppose there's no way to make it out of this motherhood gig without second guessing yourself. I just wish I could get it through my head that I don't have to do it all, at least all at the same time.

Atti goes to the zoo

My friend Cynthia and I finally managed to align our schedules this week, so she took us to the Wild Animal Park. I was really going for a nice day out with a friend, I really didn't think Atti would care too much about what was going on. He's still pretty internal and really doesn't do much but observe. I expected to spend the day chatting with Cynthia, watching her adorable kids frolic, and pushing Atti in the stroller. I was dead wrong.


He loved it. He totally loved it. The day was absolutely thrilling for me. Not only did I get to see my pensive little guy open right up to the world, but since it was my first trip to the animal park too, I found the whole thing pretty magical.


Atticus had no fear. We went into the Lorkeet exhibit where you can buy some nectar and let them crawl all over you to get to it. Atti kept saying, "Kitty! Kitty!" and reaching out to pet them. This little bird even gave him a gentle little love nibble.


He would not stop staring at that lion, and the lion stared right back. [Vanity side note - I really should have put on makeup or brushed my hair properly. I should have known there would be pictures. What am I, new?]


The most magical part of the whole day for me was seeing the cheetahs. I was obsessed with cheetahs when I was little, but every single time I've ever been to a zoo the cheetahs were way back at the edge of their habitat, or hiding inside their little cheetah house. The wild animal park is set up so that everything appears to be so close, and we had the best luck ever to come right at feeding time. We got to watch these three breathtaking animals prowl around, stalking the segway riders, and then eating their ground meat snacks while the trainer stood around answering questions. My inner third grader was doing cartwheels.


Testament that Atti loves the zoo? He still refuses to say Mama, but looking at this strange little creature he busted out, "Okapi!"

They say it's your birthday....

I had so much on my plate lately, I could not wrap my brain around planning a party or making a cake. So I just bought a few presents and Bear did every other thing. Including this cake.

He was adorable, preparing the cutting template weeks ago, making a practice version, going to the cake store to pick out supplies. I had some friends over when he was out shopping and he called me to warn me that he spent a lot at the cake store, so I said back "Don't worry, I'll pay you back when I go to Home Depot later." My friends loved that exchange. Take that gender roles!


Bear made a yellow cake with chocolate ganache filling and buttercream frosting under fondant. For the first time in his whole life I not only let him taste cake, but I actually took off the mean mom hat long enough to cut him his own slice and let him go to town.

I think Atti will be a neat freak like me, because after a half hearted attempt he just begged me to feed him from a spoon.


I wanted to get another picture of him in his birthday crown from last year, but he would not hear of it. He can't stand hats of any kind, including hoodies. But I can't really blame him. His hair has always been what draws in the ladies.

We barely got into present opening when Atti had a mighty crash and had to sleep off the cake while his party went on without him. I begged everyone to not buy us toys - since he still plays with the ones he's had since he was 6 months old, we do not need more toys - and instead get us books. We got some great stuff. But I had to get him one purely fun thing, so, since he's such a fan of bubble time in therapy, I bought him a bubble blower machine. To save poor mama's lungs.



His cousins loved it.

2 years old

Today is Atti's second birthday, and I'm rendered nearly speechless. I can't count the number of times someone told me, "Treasure this time! It goes so fast!" but boy howdy, they were not kidding. How do I have a two year old?

In some ways I don't. He's caught up on the growth chart, but developmentally he's much younger. Even aside from the whole not walking part. I had another preemie mom tell me that her doctor explained it took 1 year for every month of prematurity for them to catch up to their peers. So theoretically, by the time Atti's three he'll be socially and emotionally caught up. He's already making big strides. Throwing tantrums like any toddler worthy of the title. Learning to come out of his little shell and play with other kids. Capturing more words every day.

The other day I was bent over cleaning up a mess he made, and Atti came up behind me and surprised me with a smack on the bum. I jumped in the air and said, "You goosed me!" and ever since he's been crawling around the house saying "Goose, goose, goose." With just the tiniest bit of a baby lisp.

He's just blossoming all of a sudden. After working on it for a solid year of therapy, he finally decided he was ready to start waving Bye-bye. But instead of doing it when we asked, he'd crawl off into a corner and practice by himself. I'd find his little legs sticking out from under the table and hear "buh bye. Bye, ba bye." As he stared at his hand and willed it to move back and forth. I've been reading stories to him his whole life, but overnight he went from bored to fascinated and now he throws a fit if he doesn't get to have as many stories as he commands. He kisses the baby in the book, and turns the pages by himself.

He's in this amazing limbo state. Part of him is becoming so aware of the world, so keen to interact and discover, and the other part of him is still my baby. While writing this I had to stop three times to give snuggle breaks. He crawls over to me and pulls on my pant leg to check in for a snuggle before he goes back to playing with his toys. He still loves kisses so much that I can motivate him to keep working through therapy by just saying, "Mama has kisses for you! Come and get kisses!" and then he will.

This little guy brings me so much happiness it's almost embarrassing. Whenever I talk about him with his therapists and teachers, I catch myself grinning like a fool and I can't wipe it off. I'm so proud of him I can barely stand it. My little champion.

My little cowboy

There is one thing that every single therapeutic professional I've encountered has counseled me to do. Everyone from Atti's neonatologist to other mom's I bump into at therapy. Every single person who knows has told me to get Atticus into the REINS program.

Similar programs exist around the nation, but we're lucky enough to have a first-class therapeutic hippotherapy organization about 20 minutes up the freeway.

Hippotherapy sounds fancy, but it's simply horse therapy. They take kids who have any number of disabilities, Cerebral Palsy like Atticus, ADD, Autism, Vision or Hearing impairments, Down Syndrome, kids recovering from accidents, or even just an unspecified developmental delay, and give them time riding a horse. The benefits are myriad. Often kids who are unresponsive to people will open up to an animal. It's great for core strengthening and muscle stretching. Feeling the rhythm of the horse's steps is great input for someone like Atti who needs to tell his feet how to move in a different way from the rest of us, and it's a way of doing intensive physical therapy in a way that is fun instead of painful.

Some kids get scared their first time, but I knew Atti would take right to it. The instructors commented on how he had no fear. Notice how he even keeps up his steady flirting while trying to keep himself upright.


And listen to him giggle! Oh the good that does my heart!

When our time was up they walked Atti into the tack room to get some carrots and fed our pony Pancho a treat to say thanks for his hard work. Atti dug both hands right into his hair and sweet little Pancho didn't even flinch.


This day was so wonderful, watching my little guy have so much fun and gain some independence on a beautiful clear day in the country, surrounded by orange and apple trees growing fruit for the kids to feed the horses. I just felt like I'd left my hectic overcommitted life and found a moment of peace. My cup feels full. I think this is going to turn out to be therapeutic for Atti and me.

Where Atti Stands Now

It's been awhile since I had one of my breakdowns worrying about Atti reaching milestones. When a premature baby hits two years old, they stop adjusting for the prematurity. Most of the time that delay has sorted itself out by then, and when it hasn't, counting them a few months younger isn't going to mean a lot.

Now that he's nearly two, he's missed pretty much all the milestones I think he's going to miss. And that brings an odd kind of freedom. I no longer have to panic as another skill whizzes past us. Now I just get to dig in and focus on what he can do. For Atti, I feel pretty confident that his ability right now is as bad as it's going to get.

And we still have time for things to get a whole lot better.


Atti has mastered the commando crawl. He races around this house crawling on his belly like a soldier in the mud, winding up in the oddest locations. He seems to be growing unsatisfied with this method, because finally, after years of failed attempts in therapy, he's discovering his hands and knees. This kid is on a schedule of his own and he will not. be. rushed.



I've really been working on his little thigh muscles lately. Lots of stretching and pull to stand exercises, and it is paying off big time. It doesn't hurt that he spends more and more time playing with friends who stand up and run around, and heaven forbid someone do something that he can't.

He can't stand on his own yet, he still needs a lot of support, but what this all means is that he's going to do it. He's going to figure it all out, and he's going to be just fine.

Partners in Crime

When we lost our sweet Lobo last year, it was a major loss for our family. We hadn't had him that long but he was such a good boy with Atticus we loved him twice as hard.



Back in July we bought our newest little Gizmo. We picked a brand new kitten because we knew that we would be asking a lot from this little cat, and we thought that if we started young, we may be able to train him. As much as a cat can ever really be trained.


When I look through the photos from 2009, it's amazing how often some little part of Gizmo pops up in all the pictures I take of Atti. Particularly when a mess is involved. They seem to egg each other on somehow.


Gizmo never ventures far from his boy. He eats his table scraps, chases the balls Atti throws, sniffs at the robot Elmo while he wiggles, and supervises any therapists that come to the house. He's very protective.


Atti's often covered in cat scratches, but never anything painful. Just little warning jabs when he gets especially rowdy. This sweet cat puts up with an awful lot. When Atti starts to pull his fur too hard, Giz will reach out and put a paw on his forehead and push, just like a bigger kid on the playground saying, "Try and get me. I dare you try and get me" While Atti flails away getting nowhere.


People often ask me how I get so much done in a day, and the truth is that Gizmo handles most of Atti's therapy. Atticus chases him from one end of the house to the other, and when he catches him, Gizmo just gets up and moves a few more feet away.


It's almost like Atti has a really fuzzy older brother.

Discovery

During our epic eight year battle with infertility, I would regularly make little bargains with God in a last ditch desperate attempt to make things work. “God? If you give me a baby, I’ll stop swearing at other drivers.” “God? If I get a baby I’ll donate all my Christmas presents to Goodwill.” “God? If it works this time, I promise I’ll give a penny more often than I take a penny.” But the one thing I could never bring myself to bargain over was the potential ability of my child. Never once was I ever even tempted to say, “God? You can give me a baby with whatever challenge you’ve got. I’m willing. I just want a baby.” Never once. I was so terrified at the thought of raising a child with special needs, so sure I did not possess the mix of tenderness and patience and ferociousness it requires, that in all my fruitless bargaining I never even hinted at the offer.

I had known a few of those moms over the years, and I would marvel at their capabilities. I’ve known families that adopted child after child with profound needs, sacrificing wealth and worldly ambition to nurture these little spirits. Their lives seemed holy to me. I was sure that these were a special type of people, gifted with benevolence that the rest of us mortals could never obtain. They seemed like saints.

Despite all my fear and the certainty I had about my own limitations, my own calling into the Sisterhood of the Special Needs came. My son Atticus was born at 28 weeks via emergency C-section, spent 3 months in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, and a couple months into his hospital stay the doctors found some brain damage that resulted in Cerebral Palsy.

If my life were a movie, this is the part where I would go out walking through a late night rainstorm, railing at the heavens and cursing the God I believed in. But nothing so cathartically dramatic was available, so my husband Jared and I spent two days catatonic in front of the television, the floor littered with Cheese-It crumbs and Ho-Ho wrappers as we tried to eat our feelings. Once we found the strength to leave the couch and wash the orange dust off our hands, we made our way back to Atti’s bedside to discover that he looked exactly the same as he did before the diagnosis. He was still our teeny little super guy. He was still the hard won little blessing that we had rejoiced over before. He now just carried this label that left everything else up in the air. I was overwhelmed with love for him, but the visions I had of my future were terrifying. I had no idea how I could be the mom a kid like this would need.

Suddenly I found myself in this club of sainted women, only I was a bundle of neurosis with a short temper and serious self-doubt. But since I was still in the club whether I wanted to be or not, it meant that you didn’t have to be some paragon of virtue to belong, which meant that those women I had always admired weren’t some rare breed of perfection but regular old women who were just doing amazing things. And since I was just a regular old woman, maybe I could get there too. This realization gave me the faith I needed to straighten my shoulders, take a deep breath, and get to work.

It’s been nearly two years since he was born, and we’ve spent three or four days a week shuttling between doctors and therapists of every stripe. Every few months Atti accomplishes a new skill on his way towards independence. His progress is slow, so slow that if you didn’t know what you were looking at you’d think he was stagnant, but it is progress nonetheless. We have become cheerleaders for every independent movement, recognizing how many muscles and systems have to coordinate just to eat, and thrilled on a day when he poops. He’s growing into such a motivated and stubborn little kid, I think he’s going to prove the doctors wrong with a smirk on his face.

My journey into motherhood was so very arduous, on the surface it probably seems to bear little resemblance to the majority of mothers out there. I still find myself choosing to say “when Atti was born,” instead of “when I gave birth” because that emergency trip into the operating room and then three months away from my baby seems to have almost nothing to do with the typical experience. But I think my experience carries what is true for every mother, just compressed.

Motherhood seems to carry those moments for everyone – moments when you are convinced you don’t have it in you, moments when you feel at the absolute limit of your capabilities and you’re still being asked for more. It’s easy to put moms like me in our own category of saintly special cases, but it’s just not true. Getting this diagnosis did not come with a special gift basket of great character traits. When my worst fears were realized and I was forced to confront what I was going to do, I didn’t do anything more or less than most mothers do daily, I discovered more in me than I thought was there, and I did what my child needed.

2010 Year of Pleasures #1

This face. Surprised and proud at what he can do. Looking up at us to witness his big triumph. This little guy is amazing.

Merry Christmas

From our Christmas card this year:









Merry Christmas!

Mynah bird

I've been working hard on Christmas stuff and I'm doing fairly well. Christmas shopping is done, Christmas making not so much. But I'll get to that later this week.

Today is my birthday - 31 years old. I was thinking about doing a big introspective post about how great this year was and how it really changed everything for me, but I think I'll save that for New Years. For today I want to give you the gift of adorableness that I get to live with every day.

Atti's a little bit speech delayed as a result of his disability, but you wouldn't know it based on how much jibber jabber comes out of this little guy all day. He's got the T and K sounds down, so everything he says includes those, but it's pretty funny how everything he loves most - kitties, kisses and tickles - can be expressed with just that much skill.



This one is my favorite. I don't know where he picked this up, it just sprung naturally out of his little positive spirit. It is the best thing ever to be mid conversation and have Atti back me up with one of his emphatic Yeah!'s. He's very agreeable.



He always says it just like that too - full bodied. Like he's ready to provide the muscle behind whatever scheme I've got going that day.

This kid is pretty darn great.

A day in my studio, in pictures

Atti pulling on my pant leg for a little attention.


Atticus! What did you get into!


You know I'm too cute to be mad at, right?


Atticus and his shadow playing with a stray bit of paper


Gizmo is at Atti's feet all day long.


Maybe it's time I swept my floor.

Embarrassing mommy moment #1

I mentioned the other day that we had a traumatic doctor's visit? OK. Here we go.

Atti is a bit of a mouth breather. More like, a total mouth breather. It's a really really common preemie thing for their adenoids to develop faster than the rest of their nasal passages, which can lead to some blockage. They typically grow out of it, but if the blockage is extreme, than they'll operate.

He's not in any discomfort, but I think it is impacting his development. He struggles to eat, coordinating all the chew, swallow, breath, through one option is difficult, and I think it's affecting his speech too. He talks like crazy (must post video of that soon), but it's really difficult for him to say things that require him to close his lips - like an m or p sound. He still doesn't say Mama. He calls me something that sounds more like BalBal. But I'll take it.

All of this was really low on the priority level. It was far more important that we work on making sure he could see, getting his weight up, starting therapy, but now that all that is running more or less smoothly, I felt brave enough to tackle something new. Plus, between my snoring Bear and three snoring cats, a snoring Baby was just one too many things to sleep through.

It took us a while to jump through all the hoops necessary to see the right specialist, and then we had to wait for the appointment to open up, and sure enough, when it was finally time to go to the doctor, Atti had a big fat snotty nose. I called to make sure that it would be OK to bring him, and the person I was talking to only seemed concerned with what Atti would tolerate. So I brought him in, knowing my little guy to be just the sweetest and most cooperative little thing ever.

And he totally was. Until they brought out the camera on a tube that goes down his nose. After a solid week of his mom wiping it raw whenever he got within reach, my poor sweet little lamb turned into a raving beast and it took three of us to hold him down long enough for the doctor to shove the tube down his nose only to be stopped by the torrent of snot trying to make its way out.

The doctor finally gave up and sent us down for an X-ray, and the nurse asked, above Atti's screaming, if she could give him a sucker. Up until that moment, Atti had never tasted sugar. I described before how I wasn't really anti-sugar but anti-fighting with my child, and right then it sounded like the perfect possible moment to lift the no sugar ban. Since eating is difficult for Atti, I wasn't sure what he would do with a sucker on a stick, but he popped that thing in his mouth and went at it like he was built for it.

I carried him to the building next door and waited for our turn at the x-ray, and looked down to discover that I had a bright blue blotch on my white T-shirt, right in the middle of my breast, looking just like a Blue Raspberry nipple.

Finally, we got called into x-ray, and by this time, Atticus was PISSED. He was already sick, he had tubes shoved up his nose, his mom threw away his sucker, and now he had to lay naked on a cold table while a guy who smelled like cigarettes shoved him into the proper positions. When all the x-rays were finally taken, I pick him up and sing him his songs, and finally Atticus decides that I'm going to stop letting people abuse him so he calms down and nuzzles into me. The x-ray tech comes out to tell us we're free to leave and puts his hand out for Atti to give him a High 5.

Atti gave him a High 5 all right. And then he grabbed the radiologists hand and bit him.


He may look sweet an innocent, but don't be fooled!

I'm standing there with my child on my hip, covered in his snot and blue raspberry drool where a nipple would be, while the radiologist lectures my under 2 year old about biting. I wanted to fold my arms together and blink really hard like I Dream of Jeannie so the whole thing would go away.

Instead I mumbled apologies, sprinted away as fast as I could and just thought, if nothing else, this will make great blog fodder.

Play Group

We went to our first, honest to goodness, at the park playgroup today. It went better than I was expecting, but not as good as I hoped.

I was really scared to death to go, up late last night stressing and then spending all morning thinking through contingency plans. Trying to come up with ways to keep him involved with the other kids, prepared for whatever terrain we'd come across, able to play with all the equipment, if it weren't for the fact that the other moms are such wonderful, supportive, positive friends of mine, I probably would have just kept to my house.



Atti was a big fan of the swings, but the slide didn't do anything for him. Of course, he could only go down if he was on my lap, so that takes a little of the thrill away.

I brought his little walker, hoping that he'd try to use it to keep up with his little friends, but instead he just got pissed off. He recognized that the other boys could do things that he couldn't and it made him MAD. Head banging, full body fit throwing MAD. Which is good. I know him. This little guy is just so durned stubborn that he'll get mad and then he'll get to work. As we keep up with the playgroup, I think he will start using that walker more, and it will really aid his development.

But for today, I can't really describe the pit that opened up in my stomach as I watched my child realize he was different.


It's just my job to teach him that different doesn't have to be a bad thing.