The Old Normal

     The first time someone told me they thought my daughter might have Asperger's was when she was three years old.  To be honest, I had never heard of it, and sounding the word out phonetically, it sounded like some very unsavory dish.  My gut response was to retort, "Your mom has ass burgers!" Thankfully I did not.  I waited for my friend to explain that Asperger's was a very high functioning disorder on the Autism spectrum.  I stared at her dumbfounded.  She explained that the Autistic boy she spent  all day every day helping as an aid exhibited many of the same behaviors which Morgan did.  My friend went home and I sat there on the couch watching my daughter, my perfectly healthy, beautiful daughter.  She spun around in her pink tutu singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.  With all my heart I wanted to believe that my daughter was just like every other little girl (except of course much cuter and much smarter).  My mother's intuition, however, wondered at what my friend had said. Within the week I had purchased a book on Asperger's and other related disorders (of which there are many).  The book I bought was filled with checklists ( my kind of book for sure).  As I read through the lists of various Asperger's symptoms related to motor skills, to the way kids with AD play with other children (or don't play), to the way they overreact to minor changes and upsets, I penciled in a little star beside each symptom I had seen exhibited by my daughter.  By the time I had finished starring the last list, the pages were about half full of little gray stars. My stomach sank as I began to think back over the years.  Morgan hadn't walked until she was almost sixteen months old.  She had begun to speak unusually early and was oddly articulate in her speech from the time she was a little over a year old.  She could speak in full sentences before she could walk.  As I read in the book about a behavior technically termed "echolalia", I thought of how Morgan repeated questions back to me word for word, like a parrot, instead of answering them.  This was rather odd, considering that she had about 10 times the vocabulary of most children her age with which to answer me in a rational and appropriate way.  I had never known that Morgan's parrot like answering method had a name and that it was actually a common symptom of Autism spectrum disorders.  I thought of how she would never look anyone in the eye when they spoke to her and how she rarely answered anyone when they asked her a question.  I had always attributed this to pure shyness.  I thought of how she played alone in the corner in nursery and how she lined her My Little Ponies up in perfect, symmetrical rows instead of making them prance around and play.  She did the same thing with markers; with most things, I realized.  I couldn't count the number of times I had walked into the living room to find the coffee table filled with even, color coordinated rows of markers, ponies, crayons, blocks, or other toys.  Suddenly, in my mind, those rows and rows of colored objects blurred together into one giant red flag.
   
     Thankfully I am married to a man who tends to be much more laid back about things than I am.  When I began hurling figures and statistics at him, he calmly reminded me that our daughter was only three years old and had not even been to preschool yet.  I took a step back.  I breathed.  I realized that he was right.  I decided before we took our toddler daughter to a slew of pediatric neurologists and behavioral therapists, we might want to wait and see how she managed in preschool.  A year went by. The echolalia actually began to die down a bit, although, a few strange quirks and hand gestures took it's place.  We enrolled Morgan in Miss Di's Lot's O' Love preschool.  The Stanger's have attended Miss Di's for generations.  Morgan excelled in preschool.  By the end of the year, she was reading fairly proficiently.  She was only four years old.  That August, Morgan began Kindergarten 12 days before her fifth birthday.  I had briefly considered holding her back, as she was still very shy and didn't interact much with other children.  But the girl was reading Dr. Suess!  She wasn't reading Dr. Suess like many beginning readers do; filled with pauses and sounding out each word letter by letter (much as my six year old son is now doing).  She was reading with expression and confidence.  I decided I would enroll her and let the chips fall where they may.  About two months into the year, her teacher sent home a note asking for my consent for Morgan to work with an Occupational therapist.  I had known Morgan's fine and gross motor skills were a little lacking.  I guess I hadn't realized how far behind she really was.  She couldn't even hold a pair of scissors correctly, while most kids in her class were cutting with ease.  I signed the consent form, and over the next few months, she started to make some real progress.  Then came parent teacher conference.  Morgan's teacher told me she was one of the brightest in the class and that she was the strongest reader, by quite a good margin.  Then she pulled out another consent form.  This one was from the school psychologist.  My stomach knotted a little.  Apparently the psychologist had noticed some odd quirks and behaviors which led her to believe that Morgan had some type of "neuremotor" disorder.  "Like Asperger's?", I thought to myself.  I asked her teacher if she thought that these ticks or quirks were affecting Morgan's academic or social performance.  Mrs.  Hayes looked thoughtful.  It was fairly obvious that Morgan was having no trouble academically.  So I asked, "Does Morgan have friends?" Of course I had asked Morgan at home about the other kids in her class and she told me about who she played with on the playground.  But I wanted a teacher's point of view.  After what seemed like an infinite pause, she answered, "Yes.  Yes, Morgan has friends."  I told her I thought we should let things be for the moment.  There was no way I was going to have my daughter's head shrunk or have her pulled out of class and made to feel different in some way when she was progressing just fine.

     Morgan is now in third grade.  Over the past few years, parent teacher conferences have all been very similar.  I am handed a stack of papers marked with A's, 100%'s and smiley faces.  I am told that Morgan is and angel and a perfectionist.  And then there is always a "but".  "But, she gets so excited she balls up her fists and shakes and turns red in the face until I think she might pass out."  "But, she can't do the math wrap-ups.  It's like her fingers just can't do them."  "But, she gets so upset that tears come to her eyes when she gets to a level of math that's beyond what we've learned in class."  After Morgan's first grade teacher told me that she was struggling with the math "wrap-ups" they were doing, I went straight to Amazon and ordered a bunch.  We spent weeks practicing every day after school.  After a lot of tears and frustration, Morgan finally mastered the wrap-ups.  I sometimes wonder how many more "buts" I will hear throughout Morgan's life and school career.  I still have so many "buts" in my own mind.  I smile when I see Morgan sitting by her friends in her church class, but then I realize that her friends are all sitting and braiding each other's hair while Morgan fidgets in her seat, wringing her hands and opening and closing her mouth.  I am so proud when I come to Morgan's class to listen to them read.  I beam as I realize that she is still one of the top readers in the class, and reads with the most expression by far, but then I realize that she is also the only one in her class constantly rocking back and forth as she reads.  Of course these things don't bother me.  And right now, these little quirks don't bother her friends either.  But what about in a few years?  Asperger's, unlike Autism, which is diagnosed sometimes as early as the age of two, is often diagnosed around the age of ten or eleven, around the age when peers start to notice little differences.  Around the time when kids are ostracized for those little differences.  I can't definitively say that I will never take Morgan to see a specialist.  In a few years, if some of her quirks are causing marked social delays, I will of course consider what the best course of action will be to help my daughter through those trying adolescent and teenage years.

     In some cases, kids need labels.  If a child has severe Autism, that needs to be labeled so that that child can receive the tools and therapy necessary to help them and their family function on a day to day basis.  I sometimes feel, however, that these days, we are much too hasty as a society to put a label on everything.  I think a few decades ago when a six year old boy was bouncing off the walls, people thought, "he is a six year old boy."  Now, more often than not, they say, "maybe he has ADD, or ADHD."  As if labeling every possible behavioral problem our children may exhibit will somehow excuse or explain the behaviors of our children which we can't always control or understand.  Having a child with a disorder is the new normal.  Sometimes I long for the old normal; when, if boys were rowdy, they were sent outside to play, instead of being handed a bottle of Ritalin.  Of course, if Morgan's small abnormalities and odd behaviors start holding her back in any way, I may seek the advice and counsel of professionals.  For now, I try to provide as much love and structure as possible.  And Morgan is thriving.  She just made the straight A Honor Roll again, she loves cheerleading (even if some of the moves get a little tricky for her sometimes), and she even taught herself to ride a bike two summers ago.  I pray in the future that her peers will be kind, that they will be able to look past Morgan's little differences and see the beautiful, bright, funny, witty, caring girl that I see every time I look at her.  Even if Morgan were someday formally diagnosed with AD or some other disorder, I will never look at her as an "AD kid".  I will look at her and I will see Morgan.  Just Morgan.  There is no way to label her.  She is one of a kind.