Why My Son Rocks My Socks

There are many things I love about Theo, but one of them is the fact that hidden in that tiny, angelic-looking body is the heart of a true smartass. It comes out in subtle ways, but I swear to you the kid knows enough to mess with people--and it cracks me up!

Yesterday, we took him into San Francisco for an autism/Asperger's screening, at the request of his preschool. (Will tell you right now that he does NOT have autism or Asperger's, thank goodness! He sailed through that part of the testing.) For part of the testing, we spoke with a child psychologist while Theo did various activities with another psychologist and an occupational therapist. And then we got to go into a private room and observe the rest of his evaluation, which was quite entertaining. At this point, the occupational therapist joined us, and Theo was left with the child psychologist, whom neither Chris nor I particularly liked. (She was very much in the "one-size-fits-all" school of thought--rather inflexible on the idea that children are individuals.) And I don't think Theo cared for her overly much, either, as he kept messing with her.

This part of the evaluation consisted of her doing several different activities with Theo. Those of you who know Theo know that he has a very good attention span for something that interests him--and a very short attention span for something he deems pointless or boring. Such was the case yesterday. The therapist was trying to get him to do a puzzle that he didn't feel like doing, and although he was perfectly polite and never once threw a tantrum, he tried every trick in the book to get out of doing it. My personal favorite was this exchange:

Dr: Theo, let's finish the puzzle.
Theo: You have a red shirt!
Dr: Yes, I do. Now let's finish the puzzle.
Theo: You have a red shirt, blue pants, and striped underwear!
Dr (looking slightly taken aback): You...you have striped underwear??
Theo (looking rather annoyed that she would misunderstand him): No, you have stripes. Feo have colored underwear! [And then, best of all, he started to pull down his pants to show her.]
Dr: Oh, okay! You don't have to show me!!!

HA! I love it. Later, she wanted him to fill in some details about a story in a very strange book about frogs. Theo was utterly bored by the book and wanted to move on, but he grudgingly answered her questions. Later that night, as I put him to bed, I asked him what he had done with the doctor at Kaiser. His reply? "We read a boring book."

Boring indeed! The kid is nothing if not honest!!