Dark Vader

You know, there are times when Liam seems like a perfectly normal 6 1/2 year old. When I totally forget that we're waiting for Children's to call us to set up an appointment for his assessment. Then he has days like he did yesterday.

From the time he came out of school, he was crying. First because his umbrella wouldn't work. Then because he was thirsty. Then because Sean didn't wait for him to get out of the van. And it went on and on and on. There is no degree to his reaction. If his umbrella is broken or if he's hurt himself and is bleeding... it's all the same. An outburst of crying or screaming. It's a little easier to deal with now that we realize that his brain probably processes things differently. But at the same time it's harder because I look ahead and wonder if he'll be able to control those emotions as he gets older. I can get really sad. Then Liam does or says something that snaps me out of it.

Last night, Liam and Rusty watched The Empire Strikes Back. Liam has been very into the original Star Wars movie since we bought the DVD set a few weeks ago. He's never seen the newer Star Wars movies and obviously doesn't really know the whole "Luke, I am your father". thing. So they're watching the movie, and it's the second one, the one with that infamous line in it. And Liam is enthralled. Darth Vader tries to convince Luke to join the dark side. There is a light saber battle, the movie ends. Liam turns to Rusty, with Rusty thinking this would be a question about what happens next, or how'd they fix Luke's hand. But Liam just says, "Daddy? I think Dark Vader misses his son." Then he runs out to get his jammies on.

Now, I was nine when I saw The Empire Strikes back. It never occurred to me that Darth Vader missed his son. Not in that movie (not until the third one where he saves him). You could probably put 100 kids in a room and ask them what they thought about the movie and I'm betting none of them would say that either.

Why do I bring this up? Because that "disability" that Liam is going to be assessed for? It wrecks havoc on his daily life from time to time. But it also brings into our lives a perspective that we would have otherwise never had. Liam can totally miss the big picture a lot of times then pick up on the smallest detail or nuance. He really is an amazing kid, no matter what the assessment is.