That's Just Not Normal

Hannah wrote a picture book last year. A beautiful story about being different. A little kid born into a fabulously famous clown family has no inclination towards the family business, the kid just isn't funny in the way that everyone else in the family is. Throughout the story this little clown finds his own place, his own voice, his own way to be fabulous and still be a wonderful important part of his family. Really it was her story, her experience.

I knew something was different about Hannah when she was an infant - she slept like infants are supposed to sleep, ate like they are supposed to eat, played and grew like they were supposed to play and grow.  From the time she was tiny she would sit on my lap, in the swing, car seat, bouncy chair, and quietly watch her older two sisters in complete amusement.  I used to say that Hannah was so easy she was an argument for having a 4th child.

Later when Rachel had been finally diagnosed with ADHD, then their father, my husband Mark, then younger sister Mary, then Mariah I started to panic and took all the rest of the family in for testing. I was afraid I was going to miss something and have another child struggle needlessly without proper help and intervention. Sure enough there was something different about Hannah, she was the only one of our 6 (biological) children that did NOT have ADHD and all the accompanying co-conditions. It was me and her in a sea of ADHD.

It has been a remarkable difference to watch. One night when we had told everyone to get ready for bed and then meet in the living room for family prayer. Mark and I sat on the couch and chuckled as chaos circled around us. We reminded, then we followed up, then followed up again and again. Jaren was swinging from the bars of the top bunk in between the two beds hooting like a monkey. Mary was still dressed in her day clothes with robes on, holding some kind of stick as a scepter, and a crown wanting someone to give her some proper processional music before she would head to the living room, still not ready for bed.  Older sisters Rachel and Mariah were writing and/or drawing, both insisting that they had to finish getting out the idea before it was lost forever. Hunter had a bike helmet on his back using it for a jet pack, Nerf guns in both hands running in circles with sound effects for both the guns and jet pack.  Hannah was sitting quietly on the
couch with us ready for bed, waiting, watching in complete amusement.

By fourth grade a friend of hers made a remark that, much to Hannah's chagrin, has never gone away.  They were playing on the playground and she turned to Hannah and said, "Hannah, you're perfect and that's just not normal." It stuck! We loved it! and still to this day the we tell it to her all the time. She is certainly perfect to us in so many
wonderful individual ways.

Hannah is the uncontested favorite of everyone in the house. One year, after we had carefully drawn secret Santas for our Christmas gift exchange Hannah came to us privately, she was very upset.  As it turned out everyone of her siblings had come to her separately and confided who their person was and asked advice on what to give them.  She knew everyone's secret santa, which took all the fun out of it. We redrew then and every year after that with strict orders NOT to reveal to ANYONE, especially Hannah, who their person was.

It is easy to confide in her. She is calm and listens intently. She is wise in her advice, trustworthy and loving, and above all patient.  In fact, you know you have really crossed the line when Hannah gets upset because she is so patient. She is an anchor in this house.

People frequently ask how we balance her needs and the many needs of our ADHD kids. I think the answer is the same way we handle our ADHD kids. We treat her individually just like we treat them.  Looking to what she needs. We have treated all of our kids with the philosophy that each of us comes to this earth with strengths and weaknesses and our job as parents is to teach our kids how to strengthen and use their talents and conquer their weaknesses. She just has different weaknesses than the rest - she is allergic to bees and walnuts, she has terrible asthma, had to have eye surgery, she is quiet and reserved. While we were trying to get everyone else to control their actions and tone down their presence a bit we were pushing Hannah to be bolder. It has worked, and now as she is getting ready to step into the world as an adult and high school graduate (both events happened this week) she has come up with her own saying, "Why Not Be Bold!" She even wears a little leather bracelet with BB printed on it around her wrist to remind herself to step out of the shadows.

Capitalizing on her strengths has been the easier part. Like the rest of our children Hannah is a creative genius. Her amazing imaginative mind swirls with stories, drawings, characters, the perfect shot to set the perfect emotion sailing across the big screen.  In many ways she is a product of her natural talents and the free spirited talents and imagination of her siblings, which they wear so readily on their sleeve, unable to control or contain it. They like her are learning to find the right balance, each benefiting from the others struggle and experiences. And she is finding the boldness, last year it was applying to go to the California
Summer School for the Arts, getting accepted, and spending a month immersed in the amazing creative environment and learning they provide there. It was what gave her the courage to apply and get accepted to Cornish College of the Arts. It is that experience that will give her the courage to leave home in a couple

months, move to another state, and pursue her dreams.

We will not be the same without her here, she is a great part of the balance in our hearts BUT we will love her from here, support her in all the ways we can, and cheer her on her path as we do the rest of our children, each finding their own way, the way they will make a difference in this world.

Hannah, I know I speak for everyone when I say you are perfect for us and while it may not be normal, especially in our house, we love you and are so proud of who you are and who you are becoming.


Interested in other post about Hannah and her life as our only child without ADHD you might like these...

Studebakers and Bullet Trains

Creativity and ADHD Part I

Creativity and ADHD Part II

The Magical Drawing Fairy is Real

* all art work is the copyrighted property of Hannah Aro

Rachel: Chalk Dust and Tassels

Rachel would throw her sidewalk chalk in the basket on her bike, hop on, and pedal as hard as she could up our driveway.  She was about 7 years old at the time, she would push and push up the steep driveway until she was going so slow that her bike would fall over sideways. 

Then she would pick herself up, grab the chalk and draw a long line across the pavement, hop back on the bike and ride down the hill.  A few deep breathes and she would do it all over again.  Over and over, day after day until she made it all the way up the long steep driveway.

As she accepted her high school diploma, I couldn’t help picturing her at the top of that treacherous hill of a driveway, drawing the last chalk line.  Victory!

School has never been easy for Rachel. 

Trying to remember letters and sounds eluded her despite hours of practice.  It took her years to, “break the code” and read.  There may be nothing worse in this world than struggling to read and having your little sister scream out the word you’re stuck on from across the room.

Math might as well have been Greek…in fact, Greek may have been easier.  M&Ms, beans, tooth picks, we used an arsenal of subtraction tricks to which Rachel was impervious.

It was struggle after struggle, hour after hour of work.  In the meantime, she was drawing constantly at a skill level well beyond her age. 

She was constantly creating incredible stories and plays. The children would line up at recess for parts in her dramas and directions. 

She was always ready for them, “You are the king.  Your evil step mother used to make you scrub the floors of the castle when you were little and now you rule the kingdom and you have to decide whether to have her clean the floors or be kind to her.” 

There was a huge contrast, a gap between a clearly great intellect and her constant struggle in school. 

We worked so hard with her at home that she was not totally sinking at school.  Rachel fell smack dab in the crack we try to keep kids from falling through.  When I would suggest something might be wrong, her teachers would tell me she was too well behaved, too nice, and tried too hard to have ADHD.

That same gumption that kept her riding up that driveway kept her trying at school.  That fight and drive has proven beneficial in so many ways.  No doubt, it will throughout her life.

We had such a limited knowledge of ADHD at the time.  But when I would think of Rachel I would think of great friends of ours from our years in Texas whose boys have ADHD.  The similarities were striking.  Junior high was imminent;  fear pushed me to research ADHD and to the doctor.

Mark, my husband, would have me point out that he told me not to go.  He didn’t believe in ADHD at the time.  Now he takes medication himself.  I took Rachel when he was out of town on business.  Dr. Rees, our pediatrician and a great friend of Mark’s, put all the pieces of the puzzle together.  He explained ADHD, brain chemistry, behaviors, and medication.  From all the struggles and great contrasts in our lives, a clear picture came into view.

This changed Rachel’s life -- it changed our whole family.

It was immediate.  She went to school the morning she started medication.  She had never passed a math benchmark test.  She came running, jumping, screaming out of school announcing to the world, “I got a 90% on my math benchmark!”

Medication has never peddled the bike for her, but it sure got her farther up the hill.  Each time she could mark her progress, her confidence grew. 

Diagnosis of ADHD and the beginning of treatment has in no way been the end of the journey -- it was truly just the beginning.  Mark was diagnosed, then Mary and Hunter, then Mariah and finally Jaren.

Shortly after the beginning of high school I found myself in a SST (student study team) meeting.  She had not qualified for a 504 in elementary because she was not doing poorly enough.  She was not doing poorly enough because we were spending every waking hour making sure she didn’t fail.

I tell parents now - get that 504 or IEP in elementary school because after you leave elementary school it just gets harder and harder to get.  The school and I were at odds.  I thought modifications were changes in homework, testing, assignments to help Rachel succeed.  They thought that modifications were listing the teacher’s office hours. 

I went home furious from the meeting and started researching and making a list of modifications that would help Rachel.  Ultimately, I looked at my list and thought, “The modification we need most is no distractions, no other students in the classroom and we will be fine.”

She stopped peddling - her bike tipped over and she fell unable to climb the road anymore.  The anxiety, the huge campus, huge student population, the academic struggle had overwhelmed her.  The little girl who had never met a stranger was having panic attacks in crowds.

We made a radical change when we switched her to an online learning environment.  What a remarkable difference.  The Cs and Ds turned into mostly As and Bs.  She was back on the bike, chalk in the basket, and heading back up the hill.

The struggle became keeping this wonderfully social girl happy when her high school became a one room computer lab with 10 to 15 kids attending at the school site.  Most of the students in her charter school never go to the school site they attend from home and are spread over 7 counties.

Even a month before the end of the school year and graduation from high school, she was begging us to move to Sacramento so that she could attend a small charter high school there with more students. 

Rachel brags that her greatest accomplishment was walking all the way to the stand, up to get her American Legion award, and to get her diploma with out crutches and with out falling in the big black boot she has been wearing while her ruptured ankle ligaments heal. 

I watched her on the stand.  I saw a beautiful, intelligent, talented young woman; inside there’s a tough little girl, chalk in hand, ready to tackle mountains, unwilling to give up. 

I imagine there is a little chalk dust on her tassel.