Wherein my wife and I describe a day without meds, without sleep, and concluding with a horse tranquilizer. For AJ, that is.,

Intro

So my son has a pretty severe case of ADHD. And lest you nay-sayers pooh-pooh that notion, let me say that even when merely undermedicated both his pediatrician and psychiatrist remark that his is one of the more extreme cases of hyperactivity they've ever seen. Yet when properly medicated with methamphetamine salts he's calm, collected, and controlled. (Mostly.) When completely off his meds? He's a a wildcat on crank. But once in a while, even under meds, AJ will space out for a few seconds and lose time, lose his thread of thought, and just stare off into space. When he resumes he carries on with whatever catches his attention first. The docs thought,

Last week saw a milestone pass in our house: AJ enjoyed his very first last day of his very first year of schooling. He has now officially "graduated" kindergarten.

We are very proud.

Never having parented before, and having no memories of Kindergarten myself (I never went, scofflaw that I am), I didn't realize there was actually liturgy for Kindergarten graduation. Maybe this is something we only do here in the Midwest. Or maybe it happens all over the world and I've been clueless for 39 years. Probably the latter.

I think milestones are important to celebrate — even if there's no real par-tay and spiked beverages involved. I mean, we really don't do these things well in

Just before leaving Muskegon, Michigan, this Thanksgiving, AJ started asking us about Lake Michigan, and we realized we hadn’t taken him to see the lake for a couple years. He’s nearly five, now, so he has no memories of seeing it before. So, after driving around and trying a few frozen over access points—and one over-run by hunters—we took AJ to the pier/lighthouse where I proposed to Jennifer in 1997. There was a massive ice-shelf extending into the lake (beyond the lighthouse) when I proposed (I was literally standing on nothing but ice!), but it wasn’t that cold yet this weekend, so we thought it would be a great time to visit.

Boy, was it cold. Ice had already started forming on the lighthouse and the pier leading up to it. We couldn’t get any closer than what you see in this picture because the concrete was far too icy and

So, the other night, I get home, and before I know it, I'm in the middle of a whirling dervish of kids spinning, crawling, leaping, and rolling. AJ's been on this freerunning/parkour kick ever since we watched "Jump|Britain" on The Learning Channel a few weeks ago. At home he's leaping from couch to chair to stairs, to carpet, clumsily rolling and flailing all the while. It's unnerving, but we don't discourage it much, despite the damage to our furniture. We like active kids. God knows we aren't active enough ourselves. But in the middle of his demonstration, he stops to pull a magic trick on me. We had the camera out, so we caught it. As usual, our in-home pics aren't all that impressive, but, hey, we're proud parents.

I enjoyed a great afternoon with my kids this last Sunday. Since I’ve been in a new photo-sig at work, and since I started this blog a month ago, I thought I’d take my wife’s little 3-megapixel camera with me. Sure, it’s not an SLR, but why be a snob—especially when the images are free?  

We got a late start and didn’t head out for McDonald’s Playland until very late, and by the time we got down the road—I mean, all of about 15 minutes—Elisabeth had passed out. You can see here that she’s pretty groggy, and that was after she and AJ had slept in the van for about two hours.

Yes, you read that right. I’m a horrible parent. I made my kids sleep in an air-conditioned van. :: sigh :: Oh well. Once Elisabeth

AJ looking thoughtful/worried/constipated. Take your pick.

AJ is frequently “spacing out” with this blank look on his face, and about the only way for him to get out of his zone is for him to randomly slap his own forehead with his hand. It’s this weird zen-like form of autism, I’m convinced.

However, the doc says it’s fine, and Jennifer realized the other day that she does exactly the same thing.

And now she’s slapping herself on the forehead for no apparent reason. I guess I’m used to being around people with a thousand-yard stare. I’m not used to them smacking their foreheads!

Now, I don’t really know he’s “spacing out” here. This picture was taken by Jennifer. However, I suspect he is, because anytime there’s a camera within spitting distance, he can’t help but turn on the ham factor. So, in the absence of hammery,

This is a picture taken by Jennifer. AJ's sitting happy as a clam (Are they, really, all that happy? Or is it just a sham to throw us off our game?), or something. That's “Diesel #10” in his hands, and a Thomas the Train T-shirt.

Why do boys instinctively love trains? What's that about? Are we boys hardwired somehow to respond to the power, the deep bass rumble, the dangerous machinery, the oil? Maybe trains remind us of God?

Click on the thumbnail to get a bigger version.

---

[tags]BlogRodent, kids, photography, trains, thomas-the-train, children, AJ[/tags]