Boog Mush

Okay, I'm not usually a fan of sappy blog posts, especially sappy blog posts about kids, and super-especially sappy blog posts about kids with special needs. You know the kind: "And as I saw Jimmy taking his first step, a great swell of joy burst in my heart. I heard music as if from a heavenly chorus and I knew that everything would be all right." Ick, right? Those are the kinds of blog posts I come away from thinking, "Gosh, I think I was right when I was childless and thought all mothers got lobotomies with their epidurals."

Parenting is such a humbling experience. I'm about to write one of those blog posts.

Blame it on the pregnancy hormones. Blame it on a Pandora station I've crafted so carefully that it seems to know exactly what I want to hear at any given moment. Blame it on the fact that I spent half the afternoon reading "magical" Bradley birth stories, if you will, but rest assured, my entire brain is fully intact...as far as I know...

This requires a little bit of background...

So, we've been playing this game with Ry at speech therapy and during our at-home therapy practices that involves those rainbow-colored stacking rings. It started with Ashley, Ry's ST, trying to get him to take off the stacking rings and put them back on and somehow morphed into this mess of silliness that he finds hilarious, which includes Ry taking the rings off one-by-one and handing them to Ashley or myself and then Ashley or myself putting the rings on our heads and saying, "Ah, ah, ah-choo" and nodding our heads so the rings fall onto Ry's tray, at which point he CRACKS UP. Don't ask. My kid is twisted.

Anyway, so this game was 100% responsible for Ry learning to hand things to people. The problem is that he has never been able to carry that lesson outside of therapy sessions or practice. The only time he's ever handed anything to anyone to initiate a game has been when he's sitting in a booster seat with tray and we've brought out the rings and instructed him to take them off and hand them to us...until today...

This afternoon, I got Ry up from his nap and we went in to the living room. He was reading a book on the floor and I was nursing my billionth pregnancy headache on the couch with a glass of water. Suddenly, he turned and saw his stacking rings. He abandoned the book (this alone is a huge deal, I've rarely ever seen him abandon a book, especially a Dr. Seuss) and grabbed the rings and started taking them off the post and then (amazing thing #2) putting them back on! He's never ever put things back where they go before. He's Mr. Destructo. He comes into a room, pulls it apart to find the thing he wants, and then he leaves with that thing.

After he'd taken the rings off and put them back on a few times, he grabbed the blue one, stood up, walked across the room to me, and PUT IT IN MY HANDS. To put this in severely-speech-delayed kid terms, that's a request to play. He had never done anything like that before. We're generally lucky if we can get him to look up when we say his name while he's playing alone. He has never sought anyone out to play with an object before! I obliged by putting the ring on my head and saying "Ah, ah, ah-choo" and knocking it off. He cracked up. Then, he chased down the ring, and brought it back and put it back in my hands!

He did this again and again, much to my amazement. As we finished the game after about the 10th repetition, and he started to walk away from me, stupid Pandora started playing "Upward Over the Mountain" by Iron and Wine and I lost it. It's a song sung by a son to his mother, and despite its clearly much more mature subject matter, I've always associated it with me and Ry. For those of you who haven't heard it, I'll copy the lyrics here (oh Lord, song lyrics, too? I feel like a 16 year old girl writing about her boyfriend...this is the epitome of sappiness...), but you should really head on over to www.ironandwine.com, look under music for the album Creek Drank the Cradle and listen to it. It's beautiful.

Mother don't worry, I killed the last snake that lived in the creek bed
Mother don't worry, I've got some money I saved for the weekend
Mother remember being so stern with that girl who was with me
Mother remember the blink of an eye when I breathed through your body

So may the sunrise bring hope where it once was forgotten
Sons are like birds flying upwards over the mountain

Mother I made it up from the bruise on the floor of this prison
Mother I lost it all of the fear of the Lord I was given
Mother forget me now that the creek drank the cradle you sang to
Mother forgive me I sold your car for the shoes that I gave you

So may the sunrise bring hope where it once was forgotten
Sons can be birds taken broken up to the mountain

Mother don't worry I've got a coat and some friends on the corner
Mother don't worry she's got a garden we're planting together
Mother remember the night that the dog had her pups in the pantry
Blood on the floor and the fleas in their paws
And you cried 'til the morning

So may the sunrise bring hope where it once was forgotten
Sons are like birds flying always over the mountain

So, there I was sobbing like a big, pregnant baby over stacking rings and song lyrics and to tell you the truth, even the cynical realist in me didn't care. It was a tiny moment, but it was huge for me. I felt this weight lifted off at the first "Mother don't worry". Sometimes we're going to carry him broken, and sometimes he's going to fly on his own, but he's going to be all right.