I Can't Do It!

It starts out like any other morning. At 6:15am I go into the kid’s bedroom and wake them up. They take off their pajamas, take turns going to the bathroom, and start to put on the school clothes I've laid out for them. Angelica is the first one finished getting dressed and is already at their little table eating her “apple bar” (a breakfast bar that either has an apple, strawberry, or blueberry filling but no matter what the flavor, the two of them always call it an “apple bar”). Ronald, after finishing his one-man talk show while he puts his clothes on in the bedroom, finally moseys into the kitchen area . Every morning, without fail, he engages himself in a running dialogue about absolutely nothing, or continuously makes sounds that must mean something to him but are completely foreign and annoying to anyone else. He stands in the middle of the kitchen and proclaims, “My shoes are on the right feet!” I look down and today his shoes are in fact on the correct feet. At least half the time he’ll come out of the bedroom and announce his shoes are on the right feet but sadly they aren’t. He has a fifty-fifty chance of getting it correct each morning but sometimes the odds seem to be stacked against him.

I have Ronald sit down at the table across from Angelica while I gather his medication, water, vitamin, and his “apple bar.” As I place the items in front of him he launches into his morning ritual of thank yous. “Thank you for my napkin. Thank you for my medicine. Thank you for my water. Thank you for my ‘apple bar’.” He takes his medicine, chews his vitamin, and then eats his “apple bar.” It’s the same routine every morning, and he is generally content.

Except that one morning. He was struggling to get his shoes on so I told him to come out to the table and we would put them on later. He reluctantly sat down at the table as I began to dole out his morning supplies.

“I don’t have my shoes on,” he states in a monotone.

“I know," I say back to him while mindlessly pulling the clean dishes from the dishwasher and putting them away. "Your laces have knots in them so we’ll put them on your feet later.”

“But I can’t have my ‘apple bar’ with no shoes.”

“Sure you can,” I reply back.

“No, I can’t.” Not having shoes on, whether on the right feet or not, has put a hitch in his morning, and possibly for the rest of his day. I reassure him that we will put his shoes on after he is done with his breakfast, but this does little to reduce the anxiety that I can tell is building inside of him. By not having his shoes on he struggles with what to do next. I prompt him through each step and by the time he has finished eating his “apple bar” he isn’t doing any better. This is just one of the many examples of how dependent Ronald can be with his routines.

But I digress…

By the time Ronald is done at the table on this particular morning, Angelica is already on her school bus and on her way to torment a small group of adults at her pre-school.

“Daddy Thomas, can you help me with my butt-ins?” In speech therapy Ronald is learning to put more emphasis on his consonants so sometimes one word sounds more like two or three.

Ronald is wearing a powder blue polo shirt with thin white and pink stripes running horizontally. If Ronald is wearing a polo shirt he usually wants every “butt-in” done. I know that he’s done buttons before, so I say, “Ronald, I want you to try to do them by yourself. If after trying you still aren’t able to do them then I’ll help you.”

Without evening lifting a finger he says, “I can’t do it.”

“Yes you can,” I reply back enthusiastically.

“I no can do it,” he says. I can tell from the lack of structure in his sentence that he’s becoming frustrated.

I kneel down so I’m at his height and give him a little pep talk, “Ronald, in our house, in our family, we try before we give up or say we can’t do something. Now, I would really like it if you tried doing your buttons before saying you can’t do it.”

His bottom lip pops out and his head drops down. “I don’t wanna.”

Normally I would say something cheeky like, “You know, pouting about it isn’t going to change anything.” But in a moment of parental genius -- if I do say so myself – I come up with a different tactic. “Well, I can see that you’re feeling sad right now so I think you need to go to your room and have some ‘Ronald time’ until you’re feeling happy.”

He comes back with, “Nooooo, I’m not sad!”

As I lead him to his bedroom I’m telling him, “Oh yes you are. And you know what? It’s okay to be sad.”

He sits down on his bedroom floor and he turns on what Jim and I have termed as his “fake crying/sobbing.” As I gently close his bedroom door his “sobbing” becomes louder.

About two minutes go by and the sobbing hasn’t decreased. This isn’t unusual so I just let him get it out of his system. We’ve been told by therapists that it’s good for both children to self-soothe during moments like this.

Then, through his exaggerated sobbing, I hear him scream, “I’M HAPPEEEE! I’M HAPPEEEE!” The only thing missing was a “GOD DAMMIT!” in between his two happy moments!

I can’t help but laugh to myself. I decide to leave him alone for several more minutes. When I don’t hear anymore sobbing, or anymore “I’M HAPPEEEEs!” I quietly open his bedroom door and see him sitting on the floor trying to do his button.

He looks up at me as a completely different little person and calmly says, “Look Daddy Thomas. I’m doing my butt-in.”

Sure enough, with his little hands trembling, he is trying to get the button through the button hole. With every ounce of determination he gets the button through the hole and looks up at me, his eyes filled with surprise, and says, “I did my butt-in, Daddy Thomas!”

“I knew you could do it, Ronald.”

With his face taken over by a smile and his blue eyes twinkling he says, “Yeah, I can do my butt-ins now.”

“I want to tell you something very important. Are you listening to me?”

“Yes, I’m listening,” Ronald replies.

“Just because I didn’t help you with your button doesn’t mean I don’t love you. And Daddy Jim and I will never ask you to do something that we know you can’t do. When you get bigger and older there will be all sorts of things that Daddy Jim and I do for you now that you’re going to be able to do for yourself, and then you won’t want us to help you.”

“Like my butt-ins and tying my shoes.”

“Exactly. And getting your breakfast and making your lunch.”

“I get my own lunch at school.”

“That’s right, you do. And after you get your lunch who do you help get their lunch?”

“I help my friend, Gus.”

“That’s right, you help Gus get his lunch and you help him so he can eat his lunch.” Ronald nods his head in agreement. “Why does Gus need someone to help him?”

“Because Gus doesn’t have any fingers. But I have fingers!” Ronald then launches into counting his ten fingers.

“Does Gus have any arms?”

“He just has one small arm.”

“So Gus needs someone to help him, doesn’t he?”

“Yes. And I’m his friend and I help him.”

“You’re a very good friend to Gus.”

“Yep! I’m a good helper.”

“And because you and Gus are friends you talk about Sponge Bob, and all sorts of things.”

“Sponge Bob and Pat-wick are friends just like me and Gus are friends, and Sponge Bob lives in a pineapple and works at the Krusty Krab and makes crabby patties, and…”

I cut him off with, “…and you did your button!”

“And I did my butt-in. Are you happy and proud?”

I kneel down so we’re looking at each other eye-to-eye. “I’m very proud of you, buddy.” I open up my arms and give him a hug. “Give me a big hug,” I say. Ronald squeezes his arms even tighter around me.

When we’re done hugging I say, “I love you.”

He replies with, “I love you too!”

“I love you three,” I say back and we both laugh.

“Daddy Thomas. Will you help me with my top butt-in?”

“Well, since you did such a good job on the bottom button then I’ll help you with the top one.”

“The top butt-in is harder,” he says. I agree with him that sometimes top buttons can be harder as I easily slide the button through the hole. “But when I get bigger I do it all by myself.”

by Thomas L-L 04/17/11