That's How You Get

Scooby Dooby Doo, where are you?
We've got some work to do now.

I was cornered last month by a friend who gave me another version of the speech Adam and I hear all the time. We hear it, no kidding, about twice a month, particularly from friends a decade or more older than us. "Back in my day we didn't have ADHD and Sensory Processing Disorder. Kids just learned how to behave."

Bully for you.

Apparently the world just went indiscriminately crazy in my lifetime. Your implication, and correct me if I'm wrong, seems to be that parents today are so grossly unskilled and have such a cowardly, lackluster approach to punishment and discipline, we had to create a whole new subcategory of imaginary psychological and neurological illnesses so we can blame our children's misbehavior on anything but our own incompetence.

Your undertone seems to be, "Ryan, don't get so caught up in the terminology you're reading in all those bullshit books. You can just fix him with better parenting. Firmer parenting. The kind of parenting my parents would have doled out. Now that was some Grade-A kid control."

You know what? Put a sock in it. 

If back in your day, kids just behaved, good for you. I'm glad you were there for the sounding of the trumpets and the birth of the universe. The world was perfect, and for a brief, beautiful, shiny moment in time, moms and dads could whallop the piss out of any problem that came their way. Clearly, your parents were much better at this than I am, and I heartily congratulate them.

There may have been a day when kids were behavioral gems, when ADHD and SPD never existed, and if anything remotely similar would have reared its ugly head, folks in your day would have taken one look at it, flexed their parental super muscles, and scared it back into a corner.

The problem with your theory is, children still had those things...we just didn't have a language for it. Children didn't "just behave" back in your day. They may have been taught to publically stand at attention out of retributional fear, but children still hurt and children still suffered. You could spank them, you could discipline them, you could lock them in their rooms, but some of them still weren't well. And we know that for a fact, because we know plenty of them as adults, and some of them still aren't well. Clearly not well.

So again, thank you for your opinions on Justin and how to fix him. Thank you for your wistful nostalgia about the long-gone glory days where we could have whipped him into shape in no time. Tell you what. If Stephen Hawking ever invents a time machine, I make you this promise. You and I will buy the first ticket, we'll hop in with Justin and we'll pop back to 1965, drop him off at your mom and dad's, and they can give him a whirl. Until then, leave the poor boy alone.

Hell, (hell), what's the matter with your head? Yeah...
Hell, (hell), nothin's the matter with your head, baby, find it...
Come on and find it
Hell with it, baby,

'Cause you're fine and you're mine
And you look so divine...

Come and get your love.

   - Redbone, "Come and Get Your Love"

Justin and Justuce get gummy vitamins every morning. I pour them out of the bottle and spill them into my hand, telling the kids, "pick two." Justuce fastidiously picks a red and an orange. Justin thinks he's pulling a fast one on me. With magician-quick hands, he somehow manages to accurately palm three. Since a third morning gummy bear won't turn into much more than extra yellow pee, I let him get away with it. Every boy should think he's one-up on his dad once in a while and this is my way of letting him be one-up on me, which is nice, because...

Justuce receives infinitely more presents than Justin. Infinitely more hand-me-downs too. We're a family full of girl cousins over here. She's well positioned to receive the lion's share of some really cool stuff. She also has grandmas, aunts, uncles (and dads) who are far more used to shopping for little girls than little boys, and that's a hard habit to break. When things show up in the mail or in the trunk of the car, it's Justuce 10, Justin 2. It would be nice to report he's a six-year-old who patiently understands the iniquity, but boy, does he go bat shit. Gummy vitamins are the least I can do. He's finding his own payback, bless him.

Here's a funny one. We were playing Mario Kart last weekend and everytime I ran into a wall (on purpose, because I'm the kind of dad who's willing to throw a race for the sake of bonding), Justin gave me a proud glance and a cocky, "that's how you get."

That's how you get?

It took me three tries to realize he was saying, "that's what you get," as in, "that's what you get for trying to beat me," only he was substituting "how" for "what."

That's how you get. Priceless.

I like it when the kids switch out words. Justuce calls tomatoes potatoes. She likes eating the little organic cherry ones from Trader Joe's. And of course, the stuff that gooshes out of them when she bites them is potato juice. I love that so much I don't ever want to correct it.

Justin still calls his underwear "panties," for any of you who are still keeping score. Four months with us still hasn't changed his lifetime habit. In fact, I'm starting to give up changing him. I'm finding myself more and more calling them panties too.

"I'm starting to give up changing him." It's funny I should type that. I think a lot about changing or not changing Justin lately.

We're just on the verge of medicating him.

His ADHD screenings are done. We had to fill out a rating scale. His teacher had to fill out a rating scale. We faxed them both into his pediatrician and our appointment to review them is tomorrow. It's almost certain medication will be prescribed, a curious catch-22, since his county "care team" who are still very much in control of his medical life until our adoption is finalized, are virtually unanimous on the need to medicate him. To do so, however, will require a court order, a judge's signature, a couple of sacrificed virgins and a voodoo dance. It's no easy green light to medicate a ward of the county.

But medicate we will, and ten, eleven, twelve days from now, however long it takes the rusty wheels of county medical care to slowly crank their way down Justin's gullet, our boy will be well on his way to improved, different, or zombieland. Better living through chemistry? Time will tell.

I hope it doesn't change him too much. I love my wild little boy.

I don't want him hitting, pushing or banging down your walls, but I do want him to be Justin. And in a world full of people so eager to fix him, I sometimes feel like I'm the only one willing to slow down and celebrate him. He's such an amazing wonder. Bugs and all. And I feel like if I don't record him right now, the perfect way he is, tonight in my living room, before we put a single pill in him, none of us may remember who he really, truly was.

I'm really glad we're getting him help. I'm equally sad, worried for our own comfort, we're lining up to make his magic go away. What if we're taking away something really, really special that will never come again? His mojo. His uniqueness. His Justin-ness. I love him so much, I hate to be the one to force a change, especially one, when it's not driving me crazy, I so secretly admire.

Jack Kerouac said it this way:

"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing but burn, burn, burn like fabulous roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes 'Awww!"

You would definitely go "awww!" if you saw Justin. Like a fabulous roman candle, there is no stopping him. Before we start to fix him tomorrow, just take this one, beautiful blessing of a moment to sit here in my living room and enjoy him with me. He's watching "Holes" right now on the Disney Channel and rubbing his feet all over the TV screen. And I couldn't love him more.

He's my beautiful little Scooby who never stops, never slows down. My song and my celebration.

I wished on a star. And that's how I got.

And now may I always do what's right for him.

My funny, perfect little friend. Just as he is, right now, tonight.

My son.