LaLa's Little Monster

I went to work today and all was well. I emailed my mom, my sisters and 2 of the besties to say good morning. My middle sister, we call her Chuck (short interesting story for another day), mentions she's taking her daughter to the hospital today to have blood drawn because she's lost a little weight and the Dr. wanted to get some blood work to see what was what. Normal stuff I wasn't too worried, and then she mentioned my nephew, number 2 my Monster. I've been calling him my monster since he was a big little thing. He was a big baby, the doctors miscalculated her due date and she had a lot of trouble getting him here. He's always been a let's say awkward kid. He always had the biggest, prettiest smile so even when he did something that would raise an eyebrow with anyone else we'd kind of let the odd stuff slide. I mean what kid isn't odd? My youngest sister's son told us he used to be a fly 2 days ago and right now he's pink. He colored his hands and arms and a wall pink. Odd right? The monster, though, it was something else nagging at me for a while about some of his quirks. I brushed them aside when he'd go to his regular Dr. appointments and get a clean bill of health.

Today, though, a nurse pointed out that some of his behaviors aren't "normal" and that my sister should have him checked out by his Dr. for as she put it a mental defect. I went on the defensive. I mean what does this nurse know? Why are you taking her word? Maybe he was just afraid of her because he knows that nurses usually don't mean good stuff is about to happen. Then I had to get real with myself because here my sister was asking me honestly did I think anything was wrong with her child. Talk about a sucker punch. I went through some of the odd things I've noticed over the years. She pointed out some of the same things and also some stuff that his caretakers have noticed. It didn't look good.

I told her to take a look at asperger's syndrome.

My heart dropped a little. She went through the list. Agreed that a lot of the symptoms sound like the Monster. *Sigh* I again go into big sister mode, "a lot of that stuff could just be he's a 3 year old too, you know."

"Yeah but what about the one's that aren't normal 3 year old stuff? "

"I don't know kid...I guess you are going to have to call the Dr. and take the list and a list of questions and hope for the best."

"Yeah I guess so..."

I didn't cry at my desk today by sheer force of will. She made a Dr. appointment for Thursday. I'd be lying if I didn't say I was scared. She says "It would be MY kid that would have problems."

"Statistically, it was bound to happen to one of us." Okay me using numbers is never good. I hate numbers. "Let's not say he has problems though, the Monster has always been different and we made the best of it. Nothing is going to change because you have a name for his quirks."

Spoken like a pro right? Not really. I hope that she goes to the Dr. on Thursday and there is no cause for concern. I hope the Dr. says that he's a normal 3 year old and he'll grow out of all of the little bothersome things. I hope my sister will DRASTICALLY change her parenting style regardless of what the Dr. says.

*Sigh*

Right now I just HOPE.