Thorin would be six, almost seven years old when he started, though. As it was, he would be almost six years old when he started kindergarten in the fall. What would lead us to believe they would start raising the bar? We were fundamentally in opposition regarding Thorin. I told Ward we needed less of them and more of something else. He agreed wholeheartedly. With only nine months before the first day of kindergarten, I started looking for a miracle school.
Within a week, I found a school. After speaking with the school director, she recommended I talk to another mother whose daughter attended the school and had Down syndrome. On the school tour, we ran into Amy and her daughter, Maggie. Ward and I stopped to chat with her, and Thorin and Maggie set off to play in the stairway.
Amy asked, “How old is he, again?
“Five.”
“She’s five, too. When is his birthday?”
I told Amy the date.
“That’s her birthday,” she replied.
Ward and I said, at the same time, “Wow!”
Amy pushed ahead rapidly asking more questions. What State was he born in? Same. City? Same. Hospital? Same.
I got goose bumps. She explained that a few hours before her daughter was born, a boy who had Down syndrome was also born at the hospital. The boy’s mother was in a room three doors down from Amy. The hospital staff thought it was a great opportunity for the two moms to meet, given their mutual bond. The boy’s mother said yes to the meeting and then changed her mind. Ward and I stood there with our mouths open, shaking our heads.
Amy was crushed when the mother changed her mind. “I was sure it meant something that these two babies were born within hours of each other.”
“So you never saw him until now?” I asked.
“I did see him in the nursery. I went to be with Maggie but I saw him a couple cribs over, so I did go take a peek at him. He was beautiful.”
It was bizarre to be meeting someone who had seen Thorin at birth. That’s when I realized Maggie was part of Thorin’s origin story—a story many adoptive parents never get to know.
“For the last five years, I looked on the local Down syndrome parents’ webpage checking to see if a boy with that birthday had been entered. At events, I would ask people if they knew the boy. I was afraid maybe he had died.”
“You had a look on your face when you started asking.”
“I just had this feeling!” she said. “This sounds so strange, but when I saw him just now I did wonder. They both have blond hair, blue eyes, and they’re the same size. They could be . . .”
“Twins,” we all said in unison.
We scheduled the first of many play dates over the years with Maggie and her family, including birthday parties, of course.
We ended up not transferring Thorin to the new school, realizing it would be too disruptive for Thorin. I sat down with Louise, and we were able to move toward a common goal named Thorin. The staff would lift the bar on his developmental delays. I would restart our relationship there by being more honest. I would, however, never cotton to Ms. Deadpan. She made it clear she thought she knew what was best for Thorin. I made it clear I thought she was an annoying gnat.
I realized that I was asking for the bar to be raised for Thorin at school, but at home we were using covered cups because he was still throwing whatever he drank. I feared he would be in high school, drinking out of a sippy cup. It was time for tactics.
One morning at breakfast, I got up my nerve and put his juice in a child-sized coffee cup with a Santa face on the side of it; I had to steady my hand.
“Hey, here’s our favorite guy, Santa!” I said as a distraction from the fact it wasn’t a covered cup.
“Oh, yeah!” said Thorin.
For the next several minutes, I smugly observed Thorin drinking his juice. This was a snap! I wished I’d done it ages ago.
Ward walked into the room. “Alright! A big boy cup!”
I tried to telepathically send him a pleading message: Ward, what are you fucking thinking? Why call attention to the cup?
Thorin looked at us, smiled, and dropped the cup and its contents on the floor.
Thorin had been with us 1,068 days. Figuring three meals a day—omitting snack time—that represented 3,204 meals. Given those parameters, I calculated he had thrown his juice and milk, around 6,500 times. I knew it meant something. I was convinced his pools had meaning in the way Nabokov in Bend Sinister used puddles, ink stains, and spilled milk to reflect upon tenderness and beauty. I knew Thorin’s puddles had depth but I didn’t know what they reflected.
A few months later, Ward and I attended a conference for parents of children with Down syndrome. We were particularly interested because the keynote speaker was from Boston’s Children’s Hospital. The title of his speech was simply “Behavior.” His first question to the audience was “Does your child throw things?” Ward and I leaned forward in our seats.
Next, he told the audience that behavior is communication. We learned children with delayed speech and language get upset by not being able to take part in the world of talkers, which goes something like this:
•No one realizes the sounds you are making are you talking—throw something!
•Everyone is talking to each other but not you—throw something!
•You don’t know yet how to get Kyle to play with you—throw his truck!
I was right! Thorin had been telling us something! His pools had depth! Score one for Mommy! The speaker then went on to explain how to deal with the behavior in a non-judgmental way. However, my long-awaited triumph in understanding Thorin as a real mother does was short lived.
After the speaker’s presentation there
