I remember my wife’s first Mother’s Day vividly. Clay’s older brother, our first child, was about eight months old, and he had a fever. I stayed home with him, while my wife visited her mother. The little guy did not want to be put down, so I spent a long afternoon wandering the house carrying him, talking to him and feeding him liquid acetaminophen at appropriate intervals. When my wife came home around dinner time, she took him from me, and he promptly vomited all over her. Welcome to motherhood. That became the yardstick by which we have measured all subsequent Mother’s Days. (“At least no one threw up on me.”) Until this year. Read the rest of this entry »

Every parent knows about the dreaded call. It is the sinking feeling that flows through your body when the phone rings during the day and the caller ID shows the name of your kid’s school. That call almost always signals the same thing. Your little one is not feeling well, and—like it or not—somebody’s work day is about to be ended prematurely.

Monday morning, my wife picked up her cell phone at work to receive the news that Clay had been acting agitated at school all morning. He had indicated he needed to go to the rest room eight times, but didn’t actually relieve himself in any of those visits. The school nurse suggested he might have a urinary problem that needed to be looked at, and requested we pick him up. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s allergy season, which means there are days when Clay—like a lot of other people—is not in a mood to focus.

Last Thursday afternoon, Clay ran up the driveway from the bus, left his sneakers on the kitchen floor, his jacket on the counter and dropped a trail of pretzel sticks through the living room, up the stairs and into his bedroom, where I found him wrapped in his covers trying to burrow into the wall next to his bed. I could see it was going to be one of those “high energy” afternoons. Read the rest of this entry »

Clay loves music. A wide range of music. His tastes jump from Johnny Cash to Louis Armstrong to Smash Mouth to Green Day (although just the song Good Riddance) to George Winston to Mister Rogers. Sadly, he is rough on CDs, which quickly end up scratched or cracked, and his fingers don’t work so well with the tiny controls on an iPod. Our solution recently has been to add music to iTunes on the computer he uses. The album covers are easier to recognize and click for a boy with visual processing issues.

I figured he appreciated me adding an assortment of albums and singles earlier this week when I heard him squealing while listening. But then he gave me a gift in return. Read the rest of this entry »

We were wrapping up an hour-long session with Clay’s communication teacher, Jessica, a few weeks back when I asked him if he had any thing else to add. Here is what transpired. (Jessica is on his right. That’s his Mom providing some support on his left.)

Such a polite kid.