Brilliant Mind

This is more of a journal entry, mostly because I don't want to forget some things from this stage in Dave's life....ok you have been given fair warning ;)

David is one confusing child.

He still has no diagnosis other than significant global developmental delay, but I know that will change as the years go on.  We often say "It's a David thing" in our house.  He has not followed by the books in any way.  We constantly are learning a new normal.  Right now it doesn't feel like a trial so much as a life-learning experience.

Despite a 35% delay in speech, some of the things that come out of this kid's mouth just boggles my mind.  This is not a "look how awesome my kid is" but seriously I am perplexed by his little mind!  How can he have such a severe delay in so many areas yet have this incredible sponge memory?

What re-prompted (seriously this happens all the time where I am blown away at his memory) this, was a few hours ago we went to the library.  He hopped on a computer and spent about 2 minutes arrowing through a screen that had a letter of the alphabet followed by a picture of something that starts with that letter.  ie, "Rr" with a picture of a rainbow.  He spent maybe a couple seconds on each letter, and I was taking note of how quickly but thoroughly he was studying each photo.

Now it is a few hours later and he is sitting on the couch, repeating the alphabet with each letter's corresponding picture.  I recognize that he is not just thinking of something on his own that starts with that letter because I specifically remember noting what the pictures were and some of them had strange choices.  I wouldn't be able to tell you from my own memory what all the letter's pictures were, but since he is repeating it back to me, it then recalls it from my memory--if that makes sense.

He is having one of those days, that I've mentioned before.  Where his quirks and tics are much more noticeable to me, his language is more sparse and harder to understand, but then he starts regenerating information that he has previously processed at some point.  The human brain is SO fascinating.   I wish I understood him more.

Since we pulled him from his special ed school about a week ago I have been reintroduced to his little world.  I felt like I was missing so much of it.  He was up at 6:00 and getting ready, gone by 6:50, and not home again until 3:40.  In the last 3 1/2 hours he was home before bed, he was tired and needed quiet - not conversation, or was busy eating, bathing, etc.  Months of time passed where I felt like I was missing really knowing my child.  I am sure all parents feel this way when their little children tot off to kindergarten, or in dual-income families where the schedules are similar to what I mentioned above, or maybe even more rigid.  I feel blessed to be staying home with him.  It is a challenging experience as I try to understand what makes him feel so angry, and how to get through to him on days where he is in a different world.  How to balance teaching him the things of a regular-developing world while battling knowing that expectations need to be adjusted.  To be so so proud of him for making it out for our first morning of running multiple errands in underwear, when he is 4 1/2 and most kids his age have been potty trained for a year or year and a half or more by now.  His victories are different, but it makes me so much more proud of him for having to overcome them at a heavier price and harder work. And then there are things like today that just boggle my inferior mind.  100% of the time I think that David is insanely smarter than both Bart and I, but his mind just doesn't know how to properly process the information.  I can't wait to see the little boy, and adolescent, and man he becomes, it's such a mystery.

Ok.  Time stamped and sealed into the blogosphere... to remember on a hard day, or some day in the probably not-so-distant future when I might forget what life was like back when Dave was 4 and started  staying home again. :)