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The "Bah" of Defiance
So things are progressing at a normal three year old pace with Isaac. As I may have mentioned, everyone who actually HAS kids, says the terrible twos are a myth - it's when they turn three that things get interesting.
So now Isaac has a number of very cute phrases he uses regularly.
"That's Brilliant!" which I think he picked up from Bob the Builder.
"That's tragic" which he picked up from me...only when I use it, I'm being facetious. He doesn't get that.

But the one that really gets us, is if we ask him to do something (or for that matter tell him) or especially if we tell him that he has done something we don't approve of - i.e. Do NOT stand in Sam's baby seat, you're going to break it - he knows he will get a good talking to if he says "No!" (which he does sometimes anyway).

So in his little boy craftiness, he has hit upon a response that indicates his displeasure, without (in his mind, anyway) being outright defiant. And that sound, is a loudly shouted "Bah!" as in "Bah humbug."

In fact the more he gets in trouble for saying "No", the more "Bah" seems to be surfacing. It's getting to the point where we're going to have to take steps - we really need to stay one step ahead of this kid all the time. Either way, I'm sure "Bah" will be replaced with something more subtle, but at the same time quite defiant.

Unfortunately, this is a kid who absolutely hates
a) Being told what to do, when it's not his idea in the first place, and
b) Being told not to do something he is currently doing, no matter how destructive, dangerous, or just annoying it is, because if he wanted to stop doing it, he wouldn't have started in the first place, now would he have?

Even more unfortunately, the apple didn't fall too far from either tree on this one.

One of my favorite scenes in the Matrix, is where Mr. Anderson is in his boss' office at the software company, and his boss begins to intone
"You have a problem, Mr. Anderson. You beleive you are special. That the rules do not apply to you. Clearly, you are mistaken."

It's brilliant foreshadowing by the Wachowski brothers, because as the movie progresses, we see that the rules don't apply to him, and he can in fact fly, dodge bullets, etc.

I do love that scene though, from a strictly authoritarian point of view. I wonder how many people in our call centre get told a message not dissimilar to this on a regular basis, and wish that for them, the ending would turn out to be more of a heroic adventure (a la Matrix) rather than a final written warning, and a "perp walk" back to their desk.

I think that's why the Matrix resonates on so many levels - because at it's heart it is about one man single handedly taking on a "system" so vast and pervasive that most people not only participate in it, but do it totally unwittingly.

But I digress.

The reason I bring all of this up, is because there are days I feel like having the Mr. Anderson talk with Isaac. I know it's going to have to happen at some point. I am going to have to explain that he is bound by the rules of "the house", or "the school", or "the law", or "gravity" (can't you see him jumping off the roof with a cape on?), and I know he is not going to like it.

I think I will try and delay him seeing the Matrix for as long as possible.

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Fashion Tips for Men
I had a fairly good response to my post earlier about Noelle buying me a coat, and how unfashionable it made me feel. For the record, she bough the wrong size, and when I took it back, they were out of my size, so I did end up going and buying my own. It's quite nice. Really.

However, I thought I would expand on that theme, and offer the following tip for men:
How to dress better, every single day.
1. Aquire a fountain pen. The Pilot Petit would work just fine.
2. Put on a Polo Shirt. The type Russell Smith likes to make fun of.
3. Because the Polo Shirt has no pockets, clip the mini fountain pen in between the first and second buttons.
4. Throw the shirt in the laundry hamper at the end of the day, without removing the Pen, which is completely hidden by being mostly inside the shirt.
5. Wash the shirt, along with most of your casual pants (the ones Mr. Smith also hates), and a few of your favorite casual shirts. Do not inform the "magic laundry fairy" that the pen is still clipped into the shirt.
6. Put all the clothes and the pen in the dryer.
7. Voila! You have now destroyed about half of your casual wardrobe.
8. Go upstairs to your closet, and resign yourself to wearing dress slacks, and "ironing-dependant" shirts until boxing day, when things go on sale.

But that's ok. I have a strategy for Boxing Day. Or more specifically, Boxing week. The main thing to remember, is that Men hate to shop. So the only thing they will be shopping for on the Day itself, is large, expensive electronics.

No guy in his right mind will be anywhere near an Old Navy that day. Oh, there may be guys in there, but they will certainly not be in their right minds. They will be in the mindset of a Combat Soldier in the middle of a Kandahar fire-fight.

Once the dust has settled, then go to the clothing stores on the 27th, and scoop all the deals.

The only thing that could put a spanner in the works, is the whole subject of the previous post, about men never dressing themselves. What will screw things up is if the Women who will be out shopping for clothes in great numbers, decide to scoop some deals for the men they dress.

I'm prepared to take that chance.

The End of a Long Relationship
So this evening, I ended a longstanding relationship with what had been one of my favorite online groups - Babycenter.com.

When we were pregnant (ok, Noelle was pregant. I was watching) with Isaac, Babycenter was a welcome source of information. We have never shopped on the site, but often relied on the weekly updates on where the pregnancy - and later the baby - was at that point, and what we could expect next.

I think you see where this is going.

With Isaac, he was often at the leading edge of what they said a baby should be doing at any given point, so I never questioned the accuracy or the authority of their info. It reassured me that my kid was brilliant, so I left it at that.

Well. Today I was having a conversation with a Trainer in Scarborough, and she was saying her grandson is not hitting his milestones.
"I know what you mean," I replied.
"Really?"
"Yeah, that's part of the whole Down Syndrome gig," I explained. "Every kid with DS has eithe a mild intellectual delay, or an outright developmental delay."
"But they catch up, don't they?" she asked.
"It's not delay in that sense, they get to a point, and then they stop. Sam will probably finish High School in the normal stream, and may even do a one or two year college program, but I don't know of any DS kids who finish an actual accredited university degree. Hell, we have one relative with DS who wasn't toiled trained until they were 9 years old."
At that point Jan's face totally sank. She must have thought that whatever "delay" referred to in Developmental Delay, was just that - they got to it slower, but in the end, they caught up.

Well, that's true to an extent - in terms of gross motor skills, fine motor skills, self help, etc. But not for everything.

"Don't worry about it," I told her. "Sam is brilliant in other ways. He's 3-4 months back on most of his milestones, but his emotional intelligence is very high, and he's a total charmer. He'll get by fine on that."

So I mentioned this conversation to Noelle, and she was, to say the least...a little miffed. Unfortunately, I had been basing my "3-4 month back" assessment on BabyCenter.com's weekly emails.

So Noelle cracked out the Holy Scripture of Child Rearing in our house: "What to expect in the first year."

It turns out that Sam is NOT three to four months back. He is a little slow on sitting up unasisted, but can actually sit up for several minutes at a time - he just has a thing for trying to stand up - which at this point means straightening his entire body into the stiffness of a piece of particle board. So the end result is that he sits for four or five minutes, then goes crashing straight backwards. Pillows are our friends.

But here is the kicker. Read down a ways and you will see my post about Sam's language. He has two words for sure, and one word (Baby) he has used a couple times. This not only puts him at normal in terms of language skills - it puts him ahead of the curve.

What this all means is, that we are going to end up with yet another clumsy Allen chatterbox.

Now I know all I'm going to get from comparing my baby to percentile charts is a headache, or an ulcer, because it's true, every baby develops differently. It's just that with DS, everyone tells you your baby is going to be 'slow' (not that they use that euphemism any more), and if you hear something enough, you start to beleive it.

One final point. The "Average" IQ, is the range from 90 to 110. When you get a chance, go to www.mikeferry.com, and take a look at the money churning operation that is Mike Ferry Training- the biggest Real Estate Training company in the world. He has six houses: in Hawaii, Palm Desert California, Los Angeles, etc. At the height of his influence, he was American Airline's #1 passenger. That's right. Nobody flew more than him on that airline in that year. He was described on a National Association of Realtors survey that year as being the third most influential person in Real Estate - after George W. Bush, and Allan Greenspan.

He proudly admits in his seminars that he has an 85 IQ. What got him where he needed to be was hard work and persistence, and an unwillingness to take no for an answer.

And it doesn't take a genius to figure that out.

Hamilton 911
So the other day, Noelle was having a discussion with Isaac, and he said something about mommy and daddy getting hurt. So she asked him what he would do.
"I would call 911!" he said.

This is both encouraging, and alarming. Encouraging, because he knows that if there is an emergency, and Mommy or Daddy are sick or injured, he needs to call 911, assuming a) He can reach the phone, and b) he knows what the numbers 9 and 1 look like - although I wouldn't put that past him at this point.

It is also alarming, though, because Isaac's grip on reality as you and I understand it, is tenuous at best. My concern is that the following call could occur.

Dispatch: "Hamilton emergency services. Police, fire or ambulance?"
Isaac" "You'd better call an ambulance. My friend Diego is in trouble. You need to rescue him."
D:"What seems to be the problem?"
I: "He is in trouble, He needs to be rescued."
D: "I understand. What kind of trouble, is he injured?"
I: "Yes, he is sick and injured and needs an ambulance."
D: "What kind of injury is it."
I: "He got eaten by the Polar Bear."
D: "I'm sorry?"
I: "He got eaten by the Polar Bear, and then I chased after him on my rescue scooter, and I killed him with my sword!"
D: "I'm sorry, did you say you killed Diego with your sword?"
I: "Yes. I killed the Polar Bear with my sword, so I'd better go get my rescue pack and rescue Diego. He needs my help."
D: "Can I talk to your mommy or daddy?"

This, I think, is a very real fear. We will see how it plays out.

In the meantime, it was the Down Syndrome Association of Hamilton's annual Christmas bash last weekend, and Sam was the hit of the show.

When we first got there, it seemed to be off to a slow start, and then Isaac discovered the games room. We played a few games, but Sam was getting heavy, so we had to go back to the main hall to rest every now and then. I should mention that at the time, Noelle was at her office frantically writing her Canada Council Grant that represents almost 50% of her Company's income, that was due that Monday. So she was nowhere to be found.

So Isaac and I play in the games room for a while, and then on our wandering around the expansive Chedoke Presbyterian Church, I see a sign that says "Nursery." Sensing the possibility of resting my arm, we wander in to find that they have taken the nursery, and turned it into a big crafts room for the kids.

"Isaac, do you want to do a craft?"
"Yes, I do."
"Which one."
"I want to do a craft!"
"Fine, off you go."
He didn't even look back. A cute 16 year old volunteer took him by the hand, and he never looked back.

So I take Sam out to the main hall, and the University Student who watches him two afternoons a week (Sarah, the DSAH president's daughter) proceeds to grab him, and parade him around the hall.

For the next hour, I have person after person coming up to me saying "I just want to:
a) Pinch his cheeks,
b) Kiss his cheeks,
c) See his cheeks again,
d) Eat him up he's so cute!

I'm not sure who was more popular. Him, or his cheeks.
Anyway, I go back after about 20 minutes to check on Isaac.
"Did you want some Pizza?" I call from the entrance to the room.
"No thanks. I'm making a reindeer."

15 minutes later:
"Isaac, there's Pizza for you."
"No thanks dad, I'm playing."

20 minutes later:
"Isaac, do you want some lunch?"
"Isaac. Isaac!"
"He's playing" replies the extremely cute teenage volunteer.

Finally, they announce in the main room that Santa is coming (Sam and his cheeks have fallen asleep, exhausted, at this point).

So I head back in. Isaac is playing with a huge mural of cut out outlines of kids' hands, and he's gluing little glittery bits of fabric to it.

At this point, I realize that Isaac has not only one cute teenage girl hanging off his every word, but two incredibly cute 15/16 year old girls smiling at him in amazement at every precocious word that comes out of his mouth.

The Male speech pathologist who organized the craft room looks at me and says "He's pretty much got it figured out, doesn't he."

It gets worse. I say "Isaac, Santa is coming." He drops his glue stick, and without another word, makes for the exit, leaving the girls waving at him and saying 'Bye Isaac." I have to grab him by the sleeve and get him to turn around and say "Thank you."

He is going to be deadly in about 13 years.

Finally, it should be noted that Sam has some words. He now knows that if he is put on the floor on his mat to play, and that if everyone leaves, he can shout "Ma ma ma ma ma!" and Mama will come and pick him up. He also just says 'Ma ma" periodically.

Also, when Noelle hands him to me, or if she's holding him and I come in the room, he gives a big smile and says "Da da da da." Or occasionally "Da da."

However, the other day, as Noelle was getting ready to take him to the office, he looked up at her, and clear as a bell said "Ba-by."

Now we play a game with him all the time where (for instance) I would put my hand on my chest and say "Da da", and then put it on his chest and say "Ba-by." He seems to be getting it.

All is well in Allenland. More to come.