Child Abuse in a Police Station Bathroom

During one of the many sunny, summer days in St. Louis, my wife and I decided to truck the kids for a picnic at a local park.  The park is within walking distance to some of our closest friends who have kids around the same age as ours.  We made some sandwiches, got a bag of chips, and picked up some drinks from a local fast food joint to meet our friends.  J acted exceedingly uncomfortable during the first half of the meal, which at that time was about thirty minutes of begging, rewarding, and threatening him to eat. 

When asked what was wrong, he looked up and said, “I have to poop.” 

It was my turn to take him to the bathroom so I asked him to walk to the local police station next to the park that conveniently has a nice, large restroom.  J wasn’t kidding about having to use the restroom.  He walked the slow, agonizing gait across the parking lot willing the onslaught of fecal matter to remain at bay.  He had the clammy sweat only accompanied by a midnight trip to White Castle.  Luckily, he made it.

J and I opened the door to the bathroom.  Immediately upon seeing the large, commercial toilet with the uninviting stainless steel exposed plumbing that just screamed “park butt here” he put on the breaks.  Public restrooms had been an ordeal for some time as he refused to use “loud potties.”  Refuses is mild; ropes of saliva, waterfalls of snot, redfaced, butt-clinched, rather pee on the floor objection. 

J would not cross the threshold of the bathroom door as if shutting the door and being alone with the oversized john would somehow snuff out his existence prematurely.  With all of the grace I could muster I pulled him into the bathroom and shut the door.  His screams echoed off the cheap, stick-on ceramic tyle floor and walls.  Nonetheless, I was resolute that this was not a duke that I wanted to scrub off the sullied face of Thomas the Train.  I tried reasoning.  I tried bribery.  Nothing.

I lifted J onto the toilet thinking if he would just sit on it he would understand that it was harmless.  Nothing, just mindnumbing, ear bleeding screams accentuated by “don’t take my clothes off” and “I don’t want to touch it” followed by “NOOOO.” 

Wonderful. 

I am not sure exactly how it happened, as he refused to put his back to the exposed plumbing for fear of death and maiming, but I sat him on the toilet facing the plumbing.  The almost three-year-old shreeking, purple child with every muscle flexed, completely nakely doing the splits on a toilet that would fit a farm animal, continued his blood vessel evicerating howls.

At that moment, I hear the inevitable knock on the door.  I don’t need to open it to see who it is, we are in a police station after all.  But, like the good citizen I crack the door and see two large police officers.  One puts his hand on the door and slowly but forcefully opens it all the way so that he can see all the bathroom in all its glory

“Is everything alright?”  Meaning- can you stop abusing your child for a second and talk to us?

“Everything is great.”  Meaning- please don’t arrest me until after he pinches it off, I know it is coming soon.

“You don’t mind if we just stay here do you?”  Or- you don’t have a choice sir.

“Sure.” Do you want to help clean up too?

Five more minutes of flailing, screaming, biting, salivating anger pouring from the thirty pound body was enough, duece or no.  I gave up.  I know, very patient, sensitive, and understanding right?  I gave him what he wanted, he won the battle. 

I carried J back out the picnic area as he had run the Ironman of BM’s and refused to put his feet on the ground.  We ended the picnic a little early so that he could poop without me being incarcerated.  Tell me, would you have done anything differently?

Hopefully a picture of Darth Toilet can be posted later.

When Foot Met Butt.

I write officially encouraged by the one reader and the corresponding comment.  Now, the reader is a friend, which is a little like your grandmother calling you handsome.  But, my vanity normally agrees with my grandmother’s assessments.

Quick background, J is three years old.  He was born just slightly prematurely in emergent circumstances.  The NICU was his first home, gladly short-lived.  As bleary-eyed first time parents everything is abnormal.  Then after about a month when you are a hardened veteran of the midnight feedings and know the meaning of every cry like you downloaded Rosetta Stone: Baby Version directly into your brain, no one can tell you anything.

Despite our lack of acceptance, we have always know J was slightly different, from the herion-like addiction to personal touch, the close squeezes, the constant ear covering with new sounds, and the difficulty eating foods that were more than one degree above or below lukewarm.  Leave it to comments offered absent thought to finally digest that what your son is going through isn’t entirely normal.  After all, who doesn’t like squeezed every now and again?  I don’t like loud whistles, do you?

J goes to sunday school at church.  They try valiantly to teach principles and let the kids express a blink of faith.  After church a few months ago, I raced down to pick he and his younger brother up.  It was crowded with toddlers wandering and gravitating towards the legs of elders both familiar and unfamiliar.  Parents were talking, kids crying.  Loud with pinball type movement, exactly what you would expect a sunday school class of toddlers to look like.

The grand potentate of sunday school, for lack of a better title, does an excellent job.  However, a comment slipped her lips without knowledge that I was there standing in the miasma of children, looking for one mop of curls among the horde.  One of the teachers was playing a guitar, kum-boy-yah hand holdy stuff.

She said, “It’s just J, he doesn’t like the music,” with a conclusory smirk and rolling eyes as young J had his hands firmly planted on his ears huddled in the corner farthest from the music.

Actually, she probably didn’t smirk or roll her eyes, but when you want to perform quick dental work with your knuckles on your child’s sunday school teacher, I tend to see a smirk.  It was one of the angers that sneaks up on you and kicks you in the plumbing, no time to react, can’t respond intelligently, just get out of the way before you mutter incoherently or get the follow up to the top foot to testicles.  I scooped up J and left the room and offered over-the-top complaints to my wife, with much more color and less eloquence than graces this posting.  But, since I am the author and editor, why not make myself look at least a little better.

I was pissed, but for what?  Did she mean harm?  No.  I was fuming because someone called my J different.  I know as much.  But who is she to characterize my son as someone needing special accommodations?  With difficulty and days, if not weeks, of dwelling on her comment, I reached some level of maturity where I was able to push past my narrowed vision and veiny neck.

There is an issue.  I don’t really care to admit it.  I don’t know what the issue is.  And frankly, I am not sure I believe any of the psychotherapeutic babble with regard to developmental difficulties.  After all, isn’t everyone ADD nowadays?  However, he is different.  Playing with kids, even other boys, it is apparent.  J who excells in so many areas, covers his ears and plants his head into the ground like an ostrich upon being confronted with new sounds.

His sunday school teacher’s comment above all others applied foot to butt and spurred me into action.  I decided to give a half-hearted attempt at this developmental psychocrap.  Lets see what happens.

His doctor agrees.  J is different.  I no longer wholly dismiss all of the psychocrap.  J has a sensory processing disorder.  We need help.

Oh, and ye grand potentate, you do a great job, no harm meant.  Thank you for acknowledging uniqueness despite my less than flattering response.

Hello world

I have a son like most other sons.  He is bright, happy, funny, and sensitive.  He is everything a father could hope for and houses all the innocence I long to protect.

He is a sensory child…

We are more than the sum of the input we allow ourselves.  But, our perception creates reality.  Without sight would we know attraction?  Absent sound, can we be soothed by the Mozart or Mahler, feel the aggressive and meloncholy tones of the best blues?  Minus taste, would we relish the cooking of our home families, yearn for anchestral recipes like farfel, matzo balls, or stuffed cabbage?

Touch.  The most singularly important sense we possess.  Without touch, would we know pain?  We could see pain, but could we conceptualize it?  Would we understand sympathy, possess empathy?  Could we digest right?  Could we comprehend wrong?  Or, is our sense of touch the very thing that allows us subjectivity?

Our subjectivity is proof of divine purpose.  No eye sees green as I see it.  The perfume of a rose is different to everyone who partakes.  But touch.  Our touch defines our subjectivty.  It confines us.  It is our fence and boundary never to be breached.  Touch, makes us absolutely unique, utterly alone.

What if the very thing that makes us all so different and allows our subjectivity, was in some way divergent, without?

I don’t know much yet about what my eldest son sees, tastes, smells, and most of all touches.  But, I do know there is a disconnect.

He is a sensory child…and I am his father.

“If he is not the work of God God never spoke.”  Cormac McCarthy- The Road.