Nephew Talk

Nephew Time, Part I: The Storm


I can explain a bit about the crazy family thing that's been going on, finally. 


Debra had been babysitting a little boy named Keiran, who's 18 months younger than Manny, for about two years, since Keiran's aunt, Aunt Em, gained custody of Keiran from his mother. A few weeks ago Keiran's Aunt Em decided to put him into pre-school, and something went down between Debbie and Aunt Em, but I'm not sure what. Whatever happened, it lead to Aunt Em writing Debbie an email saying that Deb was doing my nephew a disservice by not getting him tested for Asperger syndrome or autism. Debbie went to her family and they were all, "Where would she get that idea?!"


A week or so later (July 28, Storm's Brewing) Debbie dropped off Manny at our house so Deb could go to the doctor, and when Debbie explained to my mother about the email the look on my mother's face said it all. We'd known for a little while but my dad wouldn't let us say anything because we didn't know how Mick and Debbie would take it.  I wish it had gone better than it did, but things are clearing up now. 


Manny's going to be starting school in September just to see how it goes, and while Debbie found a Behavior/Neurodevelopment Specialist she likes (that ended up on the phone with her for 2 hours exchanging information and videos), but there's a 3-4 month waiting period for new patients, and that's kind of rough, but there's really nothing else to do. Debbie showed the therapist a video of Manny and the therapist said it was an absolutely textbook case, but he does need to be formally assessed to find where he exactly he falls on the autism/Asperger's scale so they can figure out a treatment plan for him. 


The current family motto is "One day at a time." 


Also, "Pour me another glass of wine, would you?" 


--


The other nephew I haven't talked about yet, but he did something incredibly cute today and I wanted to brag. Mick is actually the younger of my 2 older brothers, but Manny is older than Arthur's son, Sean. Manny will be 5 on Thursday, and Sean will be 2 in October. 


Arthur's wife's name is Janet. Caught up? Good. 


Arthur and Janet decided to try baby sign language with Sean and it's pretty much the greatest thing ever- Sean makes a fist repeatedly when he's hungry, and waves "bye-bye" if he doesn't want something (it started off as being "all done" when he was eating, but it also became "no more" or "stop" when he doesn't like something or something scares him). They recently expanded this to include "tired" or "sleepy" by putting their hands to their forehead when it was Sean's nap time or bedtime. So today my brother was working on the computer and Sean went over to him, made the sign for "tired" and took my brother's hand. Arthur asked if Sean wanted to take a nap, and Sean said yes, then led my brother to his bedroom, picked up his blankie and stood by his crib to be put in. Isn't that adorable?


I've decided to try to end on a positive note more often. And be sure to check out Blanc's Tumblr here -- in addition to his supremely nerdy posts are some great and slightly less nerdy pieces he's written on stand-up comedy, voice acting, and...well...zombie movies. But they're still unique and interesting views on modern pop culture. 


Until next time.