The Baby is “Little Man’s” three year-old brother otherwise known as “The King” due to his extraordinary command of his household. He is small in stature and large in personality, and he rules his kingdom with an iron will. When you first see “The Baby” you find yourself admiring his soft features. You can easily be fooled into dropping all your defenses as you are lulled in by his intense blue eyes. A smile so sweet it renders you completely ill-equipped to fathom the iron will that resides inside of him. He is very easy on the eyes, and just like “Little Man” he oozes charm.
I started out as “Little Man’s” superhero activity assistant. His superpower is Autism. I am proud to say that he has mastered all of his therapies, and is currently thriving in a mainstream private school. The Baby who is equally as intelligent as his brother, has experienced some developmental difficulties, and is particularly delayed with his speech. So it is my job to take him to speech therapy.
“The King,” and I have a great relationship, he finds my ability to understand him very useful. I seem to easily understand his desires with much less prompting than most. This ability saves the short-tempered king a great deal of time, and frustration when he wants to convey his desires. He is quite proficient at making his point, and extremely intolerant of those who don’t comply with his royal commands.
“The King” hates speech therapy! His therapist did not initially bond with his need to rule the kingdom. She seemed to find his personality much less than charismatic, often saying to me that he reminded her of her baby sister. It was quite apparent to me that she was not a fan of being a royal subject. “The King” was equally displeased with her disdain for his royal rule. I’m pleased that both have grown in their appreciation for one another over the last few months, but there are still those occasional moments when the clash of their equally strong wills arise!
Yesterday was one of those dreaded days. The Baby was definitely not himself when I picked him up from preschool. He seemed distracted not his usual engaging self. When we arrived at therapy his therapist was eager to share her newest Easter Rabbit game. This consisted of a cut-out rabbit with a very large opening where the mouth is, so each time a word on a flashcard is pronounced correctly a small colorful plastic carrot can be fed to the rabbit as a reward.
I should tell you that the baby has a fascination with colorful plastic toy foods. If he likes something in particular he will hold on to the desired object without ever putting it down. So his therapist knew he would like the carrots. She was in a much more playful mood than “The King,” and was trying very hard to make this new game fun for him. She also enjoys teasing his iron will a bit, and she tried to coax him into relinquishing one of the carrots from his hand to feed to the rabbit. “The King” is iron in his will not to give the carrot to the rabbit, and his therapist was highly amused by his responses.
“The King” however was not amused by her attempts, and was not at all happy with her enjoyment of his unrelenting iron will. I could see his face growing more and more agitated, something his therapist seemed to ignore as she continued to exercise her iron will. Then she decided to make the large open-mouthed rabbit hop towards him to feign that it was going to eat the highly coveted carrot he held tightly in his hand. Yep that was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
“The Baby” who is tired of this taunting, in a flash raises his other iron fist, and slams it down on top of the rabbit’s head! He demolishes the rabbit in one swipe! I watched the therapist’s face transform from smiling amusement to complete surprise. Her brand new rabbit was flattened. I then look at “The Baby’s” face. He was staring at her with a look of well are you happy now? Then in a royal like fashion he hands her the coveted carrot, climbs down from his chair, and walks towards the door. He looks over at me very nonchalantly, points to the door, and then turns around looks at his therapist and says bye.
I stood up fully understanding his royal decree, looked at his still silent therapist, and said good-bye. Sometimes a little king just has to remind his royal subjects just who really is running the royal kingdom. 😉
idioglossia: the blog 