Look into My Eyes

So, this is part two of my updates.  This time I'm covering Tyger (because I mention him sooo rarely...).

Tyger

Tyger had an appointment with a speech and language therapist as part of the diagnostic process recently.  It went pretty well.  She was lovely and told me she 'could see what I see' (i.e. Autism).  She gushed about Tyger quite a bit and about his vocabulary and language skills and said she'd love to work with a child like Tyger.  I suppose there's a chance she does this with every child and parent to put them at ease and get them on side but I - of course - believe Tyger is a child genius so I'm sure she was genuine.

Pretty much the first thing to come up was my old friend 'eye contact'.  Until we saw the paediatrician back in April, every health care professional with whom I brought up ASD trotted out the familiar line of, 'Hmm...well he makes good eye contact...'  This meant it came as surprise to me when the paediatrician mentioned a lack of eye contact in her report.  The speech and language therapist (or 'SALT') picked up on the fact it took Tyger a looong time after entering the room to actually look at her face.  And whilst he did give eye contact after that, it was sporadic and fleeting.  I think of it like trying to force two magnets of the same polarity together.  He'll look but his gaze swings away pretty quickly and it's an effort.  I never thought about how much of an effort until I was trying to cut his fringe the other day (for any non-Brits reading this 'fringe' is what we call 'bangs').

Now, I've cut Tyger's fringe many times and it has always been a struggle.  He won't stay still and trying to get him to look at me so I can make sure it's at least vaguely straight (I think it's unrealistic to aim for poker straight and completely horizontal but I do try to avoid the stairs or ramp across the forehead look as if someone might need access from his ear on one side to his scalp on the other).  It just so happened, whilst I wielded hairdressing scissors and promised a biscuit when we were done, my parents were having a look at the SALT report.  So, I was going through everything the SALT had mentioned at the same time I finally managed to get Tyger to look at my forehead for maybe 15 seconds (it doesn't sound like much but sit and count out 15 seconds - that's a looong time for a three year old to sit still) and suddenly he looked shattered. Honestly, his eyelids drooped, his face went slack and I thought for a moment he might fall asleep there and then.  The revelation hit me: looking at people's faces and especially eye contact are physically draining for him.  I knew it was 'hard' but that's quite an abstract concept and I'd sort of assumed it was hard in the same way it's 'hard' for me to not eat Peanut M&Ms if they're just sitting there.  Realising it actually tired him out was a bit of an 'ah ha' moment (and made me feel a little guilty).

Come the end of the appointment she reassured me she 'saw what I saw' (i.e. ASD)., although said it was 'subtle'.  He'd give a doll a drink (with prompting) but was concerned there wasn't any milk in the cup.  He'd bath the doll (with more prompting and Tyger making excuses about being too busy) but was perturbed by the fact the doll's shoes wouldn't come off (they were painted on).  She thought it was interesting, since Tyger is so advanced with his language and vocabulary, to note the aspects of his language that are not advanced.  Namely, anything social.  He comes out with all sorts of adult sounding language and phrases but still uses 'he', 'she' and 'that' interchangeably.  I didn't disagree with her but Tyger's ASD is not so subtle when he screams for 20 minutes to the point where he makes himself throw up because I mentioned the guy who cut my parents' hedge is on holiday.

The next hospital appointment he had was about a cyst under his eye, which just won't fracking go away.  It's been there for months and is as persistent as Baby Bear when he's decided he wants some chocolate buttons (though, the cyst doesn't keep pointing to the basket with chocolate in and going, 'Ugh, ugh, ugh, ugh,' before crying and crying when I say 'no' then starting all over again - the cyst is just...there).  I hate these appointments because you're triaged as you come in so we tend to end up waiting about an hour before seeing a doctor.  And there are no toys in the waiting room.  And no hot drinks allowed.  And now Bear won't sit nicely in his buggy for the duration so there are TWO of them running around wreaking havoc.

However, Bear running around and wreaking havoc turned out to be a big bonus this time because he was kind enough to trip and sort of smack his forehead off the floor.  He screamed.  I mean, he really SCREAMED.  And he just kept on and on.  Doctors and nurses were trying to call patients in for their appointments but nobody could hear what they were saying.  It would have been horrible...if it wasn't for the fact it got us bumped to the top of the list!  Hooray for Baby Bear!  I am tempted to stick a foot out as Bear runs past at the next appointment...

Anyway, the doctor we saw after Bear's spectacular fall was fine...except he mentioned the hair.  I wrote at length about Tyger's long hair in my blog post Yes, I Bought My Son a Dress.  His hair's even longer now and the comments and confusion have in no way decreased.  The doctor just couldn't seem to help himself.

'I called you in and I was so confused.  I checked the notes here and it definitely said he's a boy.  I thought, 'What's going on here, then!?''

What is going on here?  More Goram sexist bullshit!  I am just astounded a doctor who must see hundreds of patients a week is so utterly baffled by a boy with long hair.  My hair is green at the moment, by the way.  Bright green.  I have not had a single comment from any stranger about my hair.  It is obviously in no way noteworthy (or they realise how rude it is to comment on a stranger's appearance when that stranger is an adult...) but a three year old boy with long hair??  That warrants comments pretty much every time we go out (which, granted, is not often).

There you go.  You can judge for yourself.

Then there was the most recent hospital appointment (seriously, the last two weeks have seen an inordinate number of trips to the hospital, which would be less of an inconvenience if Tyger didn't get car sickness...).  This one was the last assessment for Tyger before his diagnosis and was with a child psychologist.  I was expecting a similar drill to the last two appointments concerning Tyger's diagnosis (questions directed to me about how he behaves in various situations and some play with Tyger whilst observing him).  That's not what happened.  She informed me, as far as she was concerned, she should be there to help with behaviour and asked how she could help.

I was a little taken aback (where were the questions about how he interacted with people and how his diet is and what his interests are and how he reacts to change?...where were the questions for Tyger and getting him to perform certain tasks?).  I put forward some of the problems we're been having and pretty much everything I mentioned was met with, 'Well, all three-year-olds do that...'  I started to panic.  Did she think I was overreacting?  Did she think I'm just a terrible parent who struggles to cope with perfectly 'normal' preschooler behaviour?

This child pyschologist was the one who diagnosed my sister.  My mumcame out of that appointment completely nonplussed.  She didn't know whether my sister had been diagnosed, she didn't really have any idea what had happened.

The child psychologist openly says she suspects herself of being on the spectrum.  I think, perhaps, she doesn't see the point in telling parents their child has ASD when it was the parents who brought it up in the first place.

Whatever the reason, I was unnerved until we were leaving and she explained she'd tell the paediatrician her recommendation was an Asperger's diagnosis.

Then quickly ushered us out of the door!

Now it's a case of waiting...but I'm hopeful.

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Yes, I Bought my Son a Dress

Tyger loves Frozen.  I already mentioned his love of the film - and the infuriating gender stereotypes this threw up for me - in my first blog post here.  Tyger especially loves Elsa.  In fact, one of the nicest compliments you can receive from Tyger is 'You're Elsa' because, by that, he means you look pretAty and he likes what you're wearing.  He really likes Elsa's dress...as do thousands of other little kids (and probably lots of adults) and - just like thousands of other kids - he has a little dress-up version of his own.

Yes, I bought my son a dress.

Most of my friends and family are of the more liberal and/or educated persuasion so I don't have to put up with many comments from people I know but I go on forums, I read the news and I know pretty much every workman/engineer/delivery man/random person in a cafe who has spoken to Tyger has assumed he's a girl simply because he has long hair.

Oh yeah, my son has long hair as well.  And, in an age when it's generally pretty socially acceptable for teenage boys and grown men to have long hair, I really wasn't prepared for just how baffled people would be by it!

There have been a few 'he needs a hair cut' comments (ha! - I'd like to see you try.  When I trim his fringe I strap him into his dining chair booster seat, give him a biscuit and then hack away as much as I can before he finishes the biscuit and starts thrashing his head from side to side so I don't know how anyone would manage to cut more off) but for the most part people simply don't consider the possibility he could be a boy.  They see his hair and assume he's a girl.  And, no, none of these times were when he was wearing his dress.  When he's dressed in typically 'boy' clothes (jeans, a t-shirt with cars on, navy and green dinosaur trainers) all anyone seems to look at is his hair.  I mean, both the clothes and hair are based on silly stereotypes, obviously, but apparently one massively outranks the other.

'She's lovely.'

'Ha!  She's chatty, isn't she?'

'You're a very confident little girl!'

These are pretty typical.  And what - ypu might wonder - do I say in response?  Nothing.  Because there's nothing wrong with being a girl so I don't see it as an insult and because Tyger doesn't care.  He's only just started to be aware of gender/sex.  In fact, yesterday morning's conversation was as follows:

Tyger: Daddy's a man.

Me: Yes, Daddy is a man.

Tyger: You're a girl.

Me: Hmm...a girl or maybe a woman?

Tyger: No, you're a girl.

Me: Oh, okay.

Tyger: I'm a boy.

Me: And what's Baby Bear?

Tyger: A monkey!

Plus - and let's be honest here - all babies and a lot of toddlers look pretty androgynous.  Babies look like wrinkly, purply bald men whether they're male or female and toddlers often look pretty indistinguishable in terms of gender (if you remove all the markers like hair clips and gender specific toys and clothes...and hair styles!).  So, I don't get angry about Tyger being called a girl, I don't make a fuss, I don't say anything at all.  But it does perplex me.  I currently have short hair (well, right now, I actually have a mess of hair that was short and has now partly grown out into a bit of a bird's nest) but I have never had someone mistake me for a man.  People accept adult men can have long hair and adult women may have short hair but small children must always fit into to comfy gender roles society has laid out for them.

This is the same reason some people would object to the fact Tyger has - amongst his train set and cars and dinosaurs and rocket and cuddly tiger - a toy kitchen, a doll and buggy, a doll house, a cuddly unicorn and pink slippers.  You know one of the worst arguments I've read on a forum?  Having dolls might turn a little boy gay.  (Yeah, seriously.)  Now, let's think about this for a minute.  I'm going to go ahead and assume the sort of person who thinks a plastic toy can change a person's sexual orientation is probably the same sort of person who objects to gay marriage and LGBT people having/adopting kids.  Given this, they probably associate parenthood with heterosexuality  Sooo...they are saying a boy pretending to be a parent - generally achieved through having sex with a member of the opposite sex - will somehow make them want to have sex with members of their own sex.  That's on a par with boys calling each other gay because they show an interest in girls.  It makes no logical sense whatsoever.

Now, I feel I should point out that whilst I in no way think Tyger playing with these toys or wearing pink or dresses or a Goram bin bag or anything else will turn him gay/bi/transgender, the Wolf and I would not be in any way upset or disappointed if it turns out he is.  Because a) we're his parents and we love him no matter what and b) who cares??  What harm does it do anyone?  Why is this even an issue in 2015?

So, I'll carry on buying Tyger (and Baby Bear as he gets older and has his own preferences) whatever toys he shows an interest in because there are no 'boys' toys' and 'girls' toys', there are just toys.  And, I'll keep his hair long until he is of an age when he can decide for himself what length he wants it.  And, I'll carry on letting him wear a fracking dress if he wants.

The dress is actually sat on a shelf right now because Tyger managed to rip it and I'm patching it up.  My sewing is functional, if not necessarily as aesthetically pleasing as it could be, but luckily Tyger won't care if the stitching is visible because he'll feel special when he wears it.  He'll feel like a princess, which I can only see as a good thing.