Why do we wear shoes?

How would you answer?

Kaia had a speech evaluation last Thursday at the recommendation of our developmental pediatrician. Having failed to even speak to a breathing human at Children's Hospital, (not a knock on them, I know they are busy), I got an appt. with a local speech pathologist.

When we got in there, the Dr. explained what tests he'd be giving Kaia then directed me to a room with a two-way mirror so I could watch the tests as he administered them. Usually, people want videos of their children's birthdays or Christmas. I would have killed to have video taped her evaluation, it was quite entertaining.

At first, he opened up a flip book and asked her to identify shapes and colors and other stuff. She breezed through that, so he stopped and asked her some questions.

My favorite was this:

"Kaia, why do we wear shoes?"

She put her index finger to her lips and looked upward. "I know! So earwigs won't bite our feet!"

The doctor, who I'm sure has been doing this a while, has probably NEVER heard that response and it was all I could do to keep from falling on the floor and cracking up. "Um, ok, Kaia, I'll ask again. Why do we wear shoes?"

Again, finger goes to lips, a thoughtful "hmm" comes out of her and then, "Oh, I know. So centipedes won't bite our feet. And even scorpions."

So now you know why we wear shoes.

She's just quirky...

Quirky–adjective, quirk·i·er, quirk·i·est.

1. Having or full of quirks, idiosyncrasies, peculiar behavior.
2. The word Child Find would rather use to describe my daughter as opposed to 'Autistic' or 'having Autistic Tendencies.'

Quirky is one of those words that seems 'good' as in, "That romantic comedy movie was quirky and light-hearted." However, when the people at Child Find decided to describe my daughter this way instead of addressing any real issues, it's not such a 'good' word. Mostly because you can't get services for being 'quirky.'

They tested Kaia and when the results came back, I didn't understand the results. They tested her for academic readiness; shapes, colors, comprehension, that kind of thing. She scored twice as high as the average.

Never in my life would I have thought I'd be upset that my daughter had scored high on any kind of test, let alone twice as high as the average. But there I was, confused and feeling that cold reality that we would not get services settle in like a February snow.

"You're daughter is very bright, Mrs. Leavitt, you should be happy," quipped the too-perky administrator.

"I KNOW she's bright, I never said she wasn't. I'm not here because I think she has mental retardation."

A nano-second later her disposition did a 180 and she said. "Well, if you still think she has a 'problem' we can send somebody to observe her. You know, Mrs. Leavitt, we didn't see any kind of autistic behaviors, she's just quirky. Bright kids usually are."

"Are you a developmental pediatrician?" I asked.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Can you say that you've observed a good cross-section of autistic children? It's a 'spectrum' disorder you know, they're not all the same."

"Mrs. Leavitt, I'm well aware of that."

"Good. But the fact is that you are a school administrator, not a doctor and not really anybody who works directly with kids, so I find it odd that you feel as though you can diagnose my child." I tried to say this last part as gently as possible, but I failed.

"Good day, Mrs. Leavitt, we'll send somebody out to observe your daughter. You'll hear from us soon."