Cubby is...different.

On the 11th of this month, I became the mother of a special needs child. I did not acquire any more children. The ones I have did not suddenly need anything more special than the day before. All that changed was a label.

For a while we have known that Cubby is different. He has an amazing memory. He can figure out mechanical things in record time (ex. all childproofing was pointless). He understands things that he shouldn't at his age. He also totally fails to understand things that he should.

At 2.5 years old he could identify all his letters (capital and lowercase) and tell you what sounds they make. He cannot answer whether he is a boy or a girl. If you ask him his name or say hello to him, he is just as likely to quote you an entire episode of Wonder Pets as give you a real answer.

When Kangaroo was born, Cubby spent a month quoting. Seriously. A month. I was the only person that he said real sentences to, and they were few and far between. It was probably another full month before he resumed eye contact. He's better than that now - at least at home. In his nursery school, he is obviously different from the 'normal' children. He watches, but doesn't participate. He quotes, but doesn't converse. When overwhelmed, he runs in circles.

We have been worried. I talked to the pediatrician, who sent me to a developmental pediatrician (which is a medical specialty I had not even heard of before). After two visits (a month apart), it required three doctors playing with my son, talking, combing through data collected from us, the school, direct observation, etc. Eventually they came to the consensus diagnosis of PDD-NOS.

For those who don't know, this stands for Pervasive Developmental Delay - Not Otherwise Specified. It's a catchall category on the end of the autism spectrum. Cubby actually shows a lot of features of Asperger's syndrome, but most doctors are not comfortable giving that diagnosis until an age of 5 or so.

This kind of explains a lot.

So I dropped off the radar for a while. I guess most of my cognitive power is being put toward adjusting to a new view of the same world. I started this blog to have an outlet. All I have done before now is try to be entertaining.

I'll still try sometimes.

Oh, and by the way, Cubby is still awesome.