Not Always Happy

by Kari Wagner-Peck

  “Yes, you can have one of the slots for Thorin! Anything for my little surfer dude!” At the time, Thorin’s hair was down to his shoulders.

  First, I met with Courtney, the social worker at Potty University while the receptionists fell over themselves entertaining Thorin. I described the situation briefly without going into my shortcomings or my suspicions about him. I also didn’t mention that the day before he had stripped everything off our bed and pissed all over it after I had, moments earlier, told him about Potty University.

  “What do you think is the major issue?” she asked.

  “I think it’s me.”

  “Good, that will makes this much easier. Do you think Thorin is in a power struggle with you?”

  “Yes, I think it could be something like that.” I didn’t think it was much of a struggle, though, considering he was winning.

  Next, Courtney went over the Potty University protocol. Then, she brought Thorin into the office with us. She read a book to him about using the potty that included a section on sneaky poops, which are the ones that happen when you don’t listen to your body. Thorin solemnly nodded at the description. I could see he was taking this seriously. Then Courtney brought out a stuffed animal turtle named Thomas. Thomas pooped out some turds into a small plastic toilet. She had Thorin push the tiny handle so it would flush.

  “Should I buy that book and get a Thomas turtle?” I asked her.

  “No, I already read it to him, and he just saw Thomas poop,” which sounded more like “I’ll tell you when I want you to do something.”

  Later when I told Ward about Thomas, I failed to mention he was a toy. Ward was amazed and asked how she taught a turtle to poop on command.

  Courtney gave us forms to record Thorin’s progress and had him pick out stickers to track his successes. If he earned enough stickers by the end of the week, he could pick a special prize.

  “Get your mom to take you shopping for underpants,” she told Thorin.

  “So soon?” I asked.

  “Keeping him in pull-ups tells him you don’t think he can do this. He can do it. He will do it.”

  When I saw Thorin nodding his head in agreement like a dutiful cult member, I knew Courtney must be The Pee Whisperer.

  Within a couple weeks, there were no more accidents. Thorin received a diploma from Potty University, which he and I were very proud of. First mission of the summer accomplished. Thorin would start kindergarten potty trained!

  Next Betty and I had finally convinced our eighty-year-old mom to move from her hometown in Wisconsin to Maine. Her decision was based on two key factors. One reason was regrettable; her health was failing, and she knew she would need more help. The second reason was joyous; she wanted to spend the time she had left with Thorin, who had become her best friend.

  In the three years since we had Thorin, we made many trips to Wisconsin. My mom had also started coming to our house for a couple months at a time. A friend of hers told me, “Your mom all but rolled her eyes when any of us talked about our grandkids. Then Thorin came on the scene, and he was the only thing she talked about.”

  My mom shared with me that being Thorin’s Bubba was the role of a lifetime. I think in Wisconsin she had great friends, many for over sixty years and a few longer than that, but she didn’t have a meaning for her life. Thorin was her meaning. A few weeks before Thorin started school, she moved into her own apartment at a senior complex, ten minutes away from us.

  After my mom settled in, she wanted to take Thorin shopping for school clothes. When the three of us went anywhere in the car, my mom and Thorin sat in the backseat and didn’t hear anything I said. My mom would share things with him, such as “When your mom was a little girl playing a game, she would cry like a baby if she didn’t win” or “She ran around the neighborhood naked once.” What the hell? No one was talking about losing or being naked. Thorin would laugh and offer a sympathetic sigh at her challenges with me. On those occasions, I wished my car had the dark-tinted glass partition afforded a chauffeur.

  Picking the proper school attire required a discussion for every selection. Each of us was equally invested, and the two of them were a voting block. While at Old Navy, I pulled out a child size Hawaiian wedding shirt in espresso with white embroidery.

  “I love this!” I exclaimed and showed them the shirt.

  “Okay. Where would he go in that?” my mom asked skeptically.

  “Where?” echoed Thorin, making a frowny face.

  “School,” I said, trying to sound confident.

  “He’s getting his haircut before school, right?”

  Thorin looked up at her while petting her hand. “Hair, Mommy?”

  “Thorin, who are you talking to?” I asked.

  “To Bubba-Mommy,” he replied. Then he and Bubba-Mommy hugged and kissed each other for what seemed like thirty seconds.

  My mom must have felt sorry for me because she said, “Thorin, I think we should let her get the shirt for you. Would you wear it, Beautiful?”

  “Yesith! Yesith! Yesith!”

  The start of the school year arrived, and Ward and I took Thorin to school for his first day of kindergarten. I asked Thorin if I could help put his outfit together.

  “Let see,” he said.

  “How about the cool brown shirt Bubba let me get with these madras shorts and your brown sandals?”

  What I really wanted to do was dress him in coat of armor. I was scared about the first day of kindergarten for regular reasons and Thorin reasons. Would kids comment on how he looked? Could I dazzle them with styling so they wouldn’t judge him based on almond-shaped eyes?

  “Do you like the outfit?”

  Thorin smiled. “Yesith. Good, Mommy.”

  “How are you feeling about today?”

  “No.”

  “No talking about it.”

  “No talking.”

  Ward pulled me aside before the three of us left the house.

  “No crying until we say goodbye to him at the school and we are out of his eye sight.”

  “I know that; my mom already told me.”

  Thorin’s teacher, Ms. Charles, was standing outside the door of the school waiting for her class.

  “Hi Thorin! I’m so excited to see you!”

  Thorin promptly ran to me, hugging me tightly as he said, “No Mommy! Tay! Tay!”

  Ward shook his head no and made an exaggerated smile.

  As I gently peeled Thorin off my body, I said in the sunniest voice I could muster, “No, Honey. You go with Ms. Charles! You’re okay.”

  Ms. Charles reached out. “You can come over and hug me.”

  She already had three huggers grabbing her tightly when Thorin joined them. Ward led me away.

  “Stop looking at him. There’s no reason to look at him.”

  I didn’t make it to the car but I was around the other side of the building when I started sobbing. Ward put his arms around me. I looked up at him, and his eyes were wet.

  “You, too?”

  Smiling, he said, “Hey, I’m not made of stone. And, look around here.”

  Ward gestured toward other parents who were sitting in their car and wiping away tears or blowing their noses. It was an emotional day for all the kindergarten parents.

  At the end of the day, I met Thorin’s aide, Mrs. Louise, whom Thorin had immediately starting calling Lo-Lo. She shared with me that Thorin was one of the children who volunteered for show-and-share. There was some confusion about what he was saying, but they were able to figure enough of it out. I was elated. He had never done anything like that before. It was a great start.

  Our work schedules didn’t align with the school hours, so I enrolled Thorin in the city’s before- and after-school recreation program located at the school. We needed coverage, but it was another change added to already long list of changes. For more than two years, Thorin was in a small school with nine children in the class. In kindergarten, he was one of twenty-two students, and at the recreation p
rogram, he was one of thirty-four children. Also, Thorin was literally the smallest child in the school. Kids—always girls—would stop to say how cute he was. It was clear he wasn’t cute in a dreamy way but in a tiny child way.

  Two weeks into the school year, Thorin started having bathroom accidents. I called The Pee Whisperer, who was her ever-efficient self.

  “Have them use the protocol I gave you. It’s a normal response to stress. He’s facing a lot of changes. Tell them not to make a big deal of it.”

  A week later, Thorin became known as “The Hitter” in his class as well as “The Scratcher” and “The Screamer,” but thankfully the last two were constrained to the recreation program. In both areas, he received time-outs, which made things more frustrating for Thorin. When I probed about the hitting in the classroom, I was told it was more like poking and pushing.

  “Okay, still not okay, but let’s not refer to it as ‘hitting’ anymore. Has Thorin hurt anyone?”

  The person laughed and said, “No.”

  “What’s going on when it happens?”

  “He’s trying to get someone’s attention.”

  That sounded annoying but not aggressive to me.

  Later, I asked a staff person with the recreation program about the situation there.

  “When is the scratching and screaming happening? What happens before it?”

  “Someone else is scratching or screaming.”

  “It’s imitative?”

  “Oh, maybe!”

  “Let’s assume it is. Has he broken skin?”

  Laughing, she replied, “No.”

  Although he wasn’t viewed as aggressive, it was clear Thorin was seen as having behavioral problems. Thorin needed support with his new challenges, and we knew he was frustrated, but it was difficult for him to articulate what he needed. I decided to call The Pee Whisperer, who referred us to her colleague, Dr. Rachel.

  Dr. Rachel was a lovely woman and not at all concerned about Thorin’s behavior after observing him in the classroom. She explained, “Behavior is communication. Thorin’s using these tactics to get attention because he has difficulty speaking and being understood.” I felt like I should have “behavior is communication” tattooed on my wrist.

  She gave the school staff the following recommendations: refrain from giving Thorin consequences and help him convey his feelings and thoughts. Dr. Rachel billed the insurance by giving Thorin a diagnosis of “disruptive behavior disorder,” which would later become a concern for Ward and me.

  With all of these distractions, we missed the fact Thorin was stealing the school blind. I think it was around the second week of school when he came home with a red sweatshirt that was not his. I was so used to being judged by professionals about my parenting abilities my first thought was, What the hell? They didn’t think I dressed him in enough layers?

  I took the sweatshirt back the next morning and explained, “We do not need this. Thank you!”

  On a daily basis, I was pulling clothes out of his backpack and returning them. I was feeling totally judged through the articles of clothing they were giving Thorin. I was a confused when I found a pink, frilly top in his backpack. Why on earth do they think he needs that?

  Ward finally figured it out when he picked up Thorin from school one day and noticed he was cramming a sweater that wasn’t his into his backpack. Then it clicked: All the clothing he brought home hadn’t been given to him. He was taking it!

  Ward asked, “Have you been taking things that aren’t yours?”

  “Yesith!”

  “Thorin you can’t do that.”

  “Yesith, can.”

  “Okay, yes you have been. But you have to stop now.”

  Holy crap! How could I tell “them” that “The Hitter, Scratcher, Screamer” was also “The Klepto”? The next day I explained to the staff what we thought had been going on. They found the confusion mildly amusing and shared an observation they found puzzling. Thorin always seemed to be pulling things out of the lost-and-found box in the hall, insisting they were his. I assured them we were working on it.

  As his thievery came to an end, I brought suspicion on myself the following month. I had agreed to volunteer at a weekend school event to try to engage with other mothers. It wasn’t like these women were The Real Housewives of Portland, Maine, exactly, but they weren’t what you could call friendly. During my volunteer shift, I was supposed to greet people coming in and hand them a flyer on the day’s events. Next to me were two racks filled with clothing. I assumed it was a clothing giveaway, so I started picking clothes that would fit Thorin. I had a pile going. One of the mothers came over to check in with me.

  When she saw my stack of clothes, she said, “Wow! You found a lot in there.”

  “I hope my son likes them.”

  “Ah, that’s lost-and-found clothing.”

  I started laughing nervously. “Oh, I misunderstood! I thought they were free clothes!”

  She looked at me blankly.

  “This must look funny—not ha-ha funny—but weird funny. I’m putting these back right now!” At that moment, I totally related to Thorin’s confusion about the lost and found.

  As the school year progressed, we were encouraged by things happening at school. One morning, in particular, I had brought Thorin to school late so I walked him to his classroom. I thought I could quickly sneak him in and dash out. We entered the classroom, as quietly as possible, but one kid turned around and yelled, “Thorin!”

  Bedlam ensued. Twenty-two kindergartners rose as one and ran toward us. I instinctively grabbed Thorin and backed up closer to the door. Screaming his name, they descended upon him. Ms. Charles and Lo-Lo flew into action—each calling out things, such as “Stop! Back to your seats!”

  But, the kindergartners didn’t stop. He soon became lost in a huddle of five- and six-year-olds. I couldn’t see his face at one point and joined the other two adults in pulling the kids off him. Everyone settled back down after much direction by Ms. Charles: “No more! Let him sit down. Stop touching him. We’re going to get going again.” Thorin made his way to his desk and sat down. I never left my spot by the door.

  Lo-Lo walked back to me. Smiling she said, “Overwhelming isn’t it?”

  I nodded. “I guess any change really throws kids, huh?”

  “Not changes, Thorin. That happens all the time.”

  Without thinking I blurted, “Holy crap! He’s like Elvis!”

  This made Ward and me feel relieved. We had worried about bullying, but instead Thorin was treated like a rock star. We assumed Thorin felt the same way about it.

  I left the executive-director position at the film festival. I needed a job that was less demanding so I could focus more time on Thorin. I became a parent coach for a company that had previously sold a penile enhancement product. Yes, gross. On the face of, it seemed like a bad idea, but I did agree with the tenants of the parenting program they were now hawking. I was good at my job, and it was nice being a cog in a wheel rather than the wheel. My supervisor was in her thirties and said things such as, “Let’s co-create that idea.”

  In an attempt to engage at the school, I volunteered to head up a parents’ advisory committee that was in need of a chair. The principal thanked me profusely. I was making a positive impression!

  At our first meeting, we discussed areas we could develop for more support. I had an immediate thought that could help build inroads for Thorin and other children with disabilities at the school.

  “I have an idea! What if we had a disability committee that did outreach and events just like the diversity committee does?”

  It was as if I asked if anyone wanted to drop acid. No one responded. I was shocked.

  “Um, no one thinks that’s a good idea?” I continued.

  Finally, the principal said, “We don’t need that. We’re doing fine.”

  A parent I had earlier pegged as a brownnoser chimed in, “I think we do a great job!”

  I felt alone and
could only imagine how Thorin felt at school. These same parents who were so careful in their approach to race and multiculturalism had unilaterally decided they were doing just fine with disabilities.

  A few weeks later, Ms. Brownnoser and I pulled up to school at the same time. While we waited for our kids to get out, she leaned her head in our car. In a loud voice usually reserved for hard of hearing kittens, she said, “Hi Thorin! Are you unbuckling yourself? Can you unbuckle your seat belt?” Then she clapped her hands together enthusiastically—twice. I wanted to key her car or put sugar in her gas tank. She couldn’t hear how demeaning she sounded and, in fact, thought she was being nice to a “Down syndrome boy.”

  There was another mother whose daughter was in Thorin’s class. She constantly talked about how much her daughter liked Thorin. I wondered if she really wanted me to thank her for raising such an open-minded daughter, or maybe she was angling for a college reference down the road.

  One afternoon, I was waiting for Thorin after school. She came over to me.

  “Last night Jordan told us again how much she likes Thorin.”

  “Wow. Maybe they’ll get married,” I said.

  “What? Oh, you’re funny!”

  “I am funny.”

  I stayed silent after that. I honestly couldn’t think of anything to say to her, but she did.

  “I understand why Thorin pushes other kids; it’s because of his communication issues.”

  I felt tears sting my eyes. I nodded my head and continued looking forward. She finally walked away. She must have also known he loved the Avengers. Almost everything he wore was Avenger branded, but she didn’t ever say anything, such as “I guess Thorin is a real fan of the Hulk.”

  I knew nothing about this woman’s life that might come under the heading of personal information. Had I, I certainly wouldn’t have mentioned it.

  A few days later, Ward was watching the news.