From April 2, 2008:
After the birth of my second child, I went back to school. The challenges of
being a parent with a child who was in the hospital almost as much as she was in
school, led me to nursing school. I studied early in the morning before my kids
were up, tended to my kids during the day, and went to school at nights. It was
hard, but I found a love for medical science and biochemistry that I never
dreamed I’d have in my pre-college days.
My third child came along, and then my fourth. That’s when I went from being
the most organized person on the planet to a complete scatterbrain. Making
lists went from being an informal obligation to an absolutely imperative
necessity!
That fourth child was something new for me even before she was born. In the
womb, she never stopped moving. Rest was difficult to come by because she was
most active at night, and a busy mom doesn’t have a lot of down-time during the
day. I was just as ecstatic when she made her debut into the world as with my
other children, and this one seemed especially appropriate having made her
grand entrance on Mother’s Day.
From the beginning, this child was different. The first thing I noticed was the
lack of eye-contact. She also always had to be moving—if I held her hand, her
feet would move. If I held her foot, her hands would move. Moms tend to brush
these things off because somehow kids all seem to even out, sooner or later. By
the time she was nine-months old, however, I knew something was at least wrong
with her eyes, and this was confirmed by a specialist who within minutes
determined that she had Duane’s Syndrome. Because it seemed only to affect her
eyes (her vision is fine, but her left eye can not move outward), we dismissed
it as a fact and went on with our daily lives.
But to me, things didn’t seem very "normal" with this child. She still refused
most eye-contact, and often seemed to completely ignore people speaking to her.
It was as if she was in her own little world. I would often have to walk up to
her, place my hands on her shoulders, look directly into her face and speak to
her. She seemed obsessed about certain things, such as with pop-up toys. If one
of the other kids was playing with the toy and it was “popped up” she would
immediately come from whatever room she was in and fiercely pop it down, and
then leave without any explanation-- as though no explanation was needed. We
were amused, but not really concerned. When a sibling would set up dolls to play with,
this child would come running and knock them all down, every single time, and
without explanation.
We had a rocking horse at one time, the kind with springs so it would be bouncy
as it rocked. This little girl would ride it so fiercely and violently that we
became concerned that she was going to seriously hurt herself and so we got rid
of it. This was another red flag for me. Fear did not seem to be part of her
genetic makeup.
Remorse was also lacking. For example, for a short while she
became a biter, and if a sibling upset her, she would bite them, and bite
viciously hard! I realize a lot of small children are biters, but when she did
this and was scolded for it, there was absolutely no remorse. Most children
when they know they have hurt someone else, or when they are in trouble, will
cry. This child never did. It was if it meant nothing to her that someone else
was hurt and it meant nothing that she had been scolded. It didn’t register at
all: no emotion whatsoever, not even anger. I tried to express my concerns to
my husband, but it didn’t register with him, either. I was just making a big
deal out of nothing.
To be Continued...
No comments:
Post a Comment