Books, Behavior and Birthday Bashes

"If I had not been what I am, what would I have been?"

Excerpt from Elizabeth Moon's wonderful, compelling novel The Speed of Dark. I just finished reading this book for the second time. It is such a powerful and well written book that it affected me just as strongly the second time as the first. Isn't that the true test of any story? Even knowing what happens.... are you still on the edge of your seat? Do you still turn each page with bated breath waiting to see what happens next.... even when you already know? Love this book. It is set in the "near future" and is the story of an autistic man and his struggle to find who he is and decide whether an experimental "cure" is the right path for him or not.

Just thought I would share. Anyone looking for a great story that will make you think.... go read this one!

The Boy started speech therapy at the elementary school this week. He is going twice a week for 1/2 hour sessions. We will see if it helps him or not. His old therapist who came to the house each week is wonderful. We will really miss her! She came by Tuesday to see how his first day went and recommended a book for me to read. It is The Einstein Syndrome: Bright Children Who Talk Late by Thomas Sowell. She said that as she was reading it, all she could think of was my boy. Here is the description:

The Einstein Syndrome is a follow-up to Late-Talking Children, which established Thomas Sowell as a leading spokesman on the subject. While many children who talk late suffer from developmental disorders or autism, there is a certain well-defined group who are developmentally normal or even quite bright, yet who may go past their fourth birthday before beginning to talk. These children are often misdiagnosed as autistic or retarded, a mistake that is doubly hard on parents who must first worry about their apparently handicapped children and then must see them lumped into special classes and therapy groups where all the other children are clearly very different.Since he first became involved in this issue in the mid-1990s, Sowell has joined with Stephen Camarata of Vanderbilt University, who has conducted a much broader, more rigorous study of this phenomenon than the anecdotes reported in Late-Talking Children. Sowell can now identify a particular syndrome, a cluster of common symptoms and family characteristics, that differentiates these late-talking children from others; relate this syndrome to other syndromes; speculate about its causes; and describe how children with this syndrome are likely to develop.

Sounds like a book I need to read. I plan on picking a copy up sometime fairly soon. It may just help me understand and deal with my middlest child. One can only hope.

Last week he decided to push his brother over in the high chair. Scared the hell out of the baby and me. He is fine, wasn't hurt at all, but I thought I was going to have a heart attack I was so scared. These behavior issues that The Boy has, and the aggression and violence, may be part of his speech issues. Or they may be separate issues altogether.

All I know is that it definitely makes for stressful times. And interesting!

My birthday was low key and mostly quiet. We may have a little celebration this weekend. Steven got the whole weekend off so we could do something and now this damn hurricane is threatening the area! So... I think we may just have some friends over for dinner one night and have a cake and I will get drunk here at home and molest my husband and then pass out. Sounds good to me!

Catch ya on the flip side!