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

Tonight - Reflections on a Day of Tragedy

Tonight I'm sitting in my living room, firing blazing in the fireplace, kids bickering, watching movies, drawing, telling stories, complaining, laughing, being.

Tonight I am soaking them in.

Tonight I'm praying for the families who's hearts and homes have been torn apart by a truly senseless act of violence. I'm wishing, like the rest of the country and world, that there was some way to make sense of the senseless.  I'm wishing that there was some way to legislate this away so it would never happen again.  Even though I know that there is no sense to be made of it.  Even though I know that legislation may make it better but what is broken here was beyond the reach of laws.

Tonight I am thinking back on the day and my own list of what should have happened before and after, soothing my own sense of wanting to control the aspects of life we have no control over.  Furious that my son's teacher played the news feed in his classroom in high school. I understand her need to know, to be connected to it.  But, I also know she wasn't thinking of the students in her classroom.  How they would feel.  What they would think.  If they were going home to families equipped help them process this terrible event or if she was sending them home where no one will be there to help them. 

Tonight I am reliving my own conversation with my own children when they came home from school - figuring out what information they had been given, what they thought and felt, what they were worried about.  Reassuring them that even if they didn't want to talk then they could come when ever they did want to talk.  Telling them that we would not be watching the news about it on TV but if they wanted more information we would look it up.  I didn't watch long, after my husband called and told me what had happened.  I couldn't, still can't get the pictures of the day out of my head.  Forever the sight of the flag being lowered to half mast will reside next to it being raised at the 9-11 site.  Tragic.  Tragic for the families, tragic for our American family, our world family.

Tonight I'm looking for a way to restore our families sense of safety and control over their world. I was talking to my daughter who did come to me privately, crying, she told me of the thoughts plaguing her.  How she couldn't stop thinking about the Christmas presents those parents had bought for their babies, those precious children. Those presents that would never be opened.  We cried together.  I told her there are so many things in this world that we can't control and when things like this happen sometimes it feels like we have no control.  I reminded her that there are many things we do control, can control.  She told me about a class project they did today making cards for a young man with cystic fibrosis reach a goal to get into the Book of World records. Something we can do, a way we can serve, a great way to exercise the control we do have in this way. Later I will deal with the school and live news feeds in the classroom.  Tonight, I am thinking of opportunities we have to serve tomorrow and the chance my family has to see that they can make a positive difference in peoples' lives, the control they can exercise.

Tonight the importance of spreading mental health awareness is central in my thoughts.  I wonder what signs were missed, what help could have been given, what could have been different for the young man who ripped the lives from these innocent children and adults.  I wonder what if mental illness wasn't such a mystery to the general public. What if there wasn't so much stigma and shame associated with this type of illness.  What if there were easily accessible resource for those suffering from mental health issues and their families.  We want to control the uncontrollable and there is so much we can't control but we can do better.  Certainly awareness, education, help is something we can do better at.

Tonight I will give hugs and kisses, listen to prayers for safety, for comfort for those that are hurting, for love and peace.  Tonight I will say a few myself.



* When the shootings in Aurora took place we did a blog on handling crisis with special needs family members 1156 Miles to Aurora - Dealing with Crisis and ADHD

An Inheritance from the Distracted King - Mastering Hyperfocus

Besides inheriting their ADHD from their father, the Distracted King, our children are benefiting from his years of experience and the many coping mechanisms that he has found to pay the heavy price tag of ADHD and open the great and marvelous gifts which it offers.

The King and I were talking today about hyperfocus, a quality of ADHD that can easily hijack the mind making it easy to get lost in ideas, creative ventures, and activities.  The conversation was inspired by a wonderful blogpost I read written by Zoe Kessler for Psych Central called A Hyperfocus Balance Sheet: Is Hyperfocus Worth it?  A wonderful breakdown of pros and cons to hyperfocus.  In the discussion the King said he considers hyperfocus one of the greatest qualities he gains from his ADHD.  It has taken a long time to get the balance just right, to master it rather than it controlling him, but now it's an asset that he uses in many aspects of daily life.

The benefits to my husband and our family are really hard to quantify but I have pinned down specifics of this sizable inheritance beyond the obvious financial benefits we have gained from his successful career.

The King has taught them to use hyperfocus to accomplish an unwanted, even hated task.  One of the hardest things for the ADHD mind to do is focus on something boring, uninteresting, or undesirable.  Unfortunately life is full of such tasks. Right now, for our kids, school is full of such tasks.  The King uses something that his mind wants to hyperfocus on as a carrot to get through the mundane and irritating.

We have a son, now a freshman in high school, who is a grammar freak.  Until we had him diagnosed with ADHD and medicated in the 1st grade he couldn't remember his alphabet. Then, like someone turned on a switch, he started reading.  Within a couple of months he was reading at a 6th grade level and much to the chagrin of the teachers and office staff he was correcting the spelling and grammar of the school newsletter and returning it each week.  Now this same son had to read a book in honors English, House on Mango Street.  It has been several months and he still randomly breaks out into rants about how horrible that book was to get through.  Why?  It has no grammar at all - just one run-on sentence.  The boy who can sit down and read a 400- 600 page book that he wants to read in a day or two was struggling to get through a page.

With the help of his father he learned how to hyperfocus on the task he didn't want to do so he could get to the one he wanted to do.  Reading chunks for the reward of reading chunks.  Important to note that you have to set limits on your pleasurable hyperfocus or you will easily get swept away.  In this case it was pages or chapters, sometimes it minutes or hours.  Today he used those same skills to write an essay for the same class.  Each time he uses the skills he is learning about managing his focus and engaging the ability to hyperfocus he is able to do more and more on his own without the Kings help of guidance.

The King has taught them how to establish a state of hyperfocus, how to get into the groove.  Getting into that hyperfocus state of mind is easy when it's where your mind wants to go but when it doesn't want to go there it can be very difficult.  The King has certainly proven it can be done.  He has also passed the process onto our children. Recently we found out we had to move, the King took one of our daughters out to the garage, surveying it he said to her, "Mary, I need to know what is in this garage.  I need someone who can get lost in this job."  Other than a few parameters he didn't tell her how to do the job. She strung up Christmas lights, found an old boombox we thought was dead forever, fixed it, blasted music, created a system for finding and cataloging everything in the garage, and went to town.

As each day passed she employed the first lesson listed above by doing other chores that needed to be done and then headed back to the garage.  The King is still teaching her the lesson, helping her learn to take breaks, praising her work and progress, helping her see the value of the time and effort she is putting into the task, and satisfaction of finishing a long hard job.

Important to note that the King didn't dictate how she got into the groove of hyperfocus, that is a very individual process that changes for each person and each task.

The King has taught them there is a time to stop - pull yourself from the groove and pay attention to other things in life.  It took the King years to learn this and personally I would like to think that I had a little something to do with it.  Just like he would go out the garage to help Mary learn to monitor and balance her ability to hyperfocus I have helped him, over the years, to see when he was loosing perspective.  This has probably been one of the harder lessons to learn but he has really come to a place of where he can pull himself from that hyperfocus state and enjoy the world around him.  Having both the ability to put yourself into that frame of mind and take yourself out of it allows you to use it daily, finishing  small projects and making marked progress on long ones.

Part of learning it and teaching it is learning to recognize what you need and what those around you need.  While getting his focus ripped out from under him is hard - he even describes it as painful, he has learned to communicate it and teach ways to cope with it to our kids.  Being self aware and being able to express it to others helps them understand where you are coming from and what they can do to help.  He consistently includes them by asking them to look at something he's working on and for their critique.  When our rather random house is firing distractions like a war zone he asks for their help in keeping his focus.  He often says I can't think about that right now but let me get to this point in my work and my attention is all yours.

The kids have become very good at being equally self aware and expressive.  As they vocalize their struggle between what they need to be doing and the multitude of ideas that flood them we can help them manage the way their brains work while they learn to manage it themselves.

Most commonly we see this manifested in the uncontrollable need to write down an idea, record a melody, or draw an inspired picture.  He has taught them to jot down notes or record ideas quickly and then get back to the required task at hand.  He has taught them that even though it is hard to wait they can.  They can remember the inspiration and act on it in the appropriate time.


The King has taught them that you can include others in your hyperfocus state, making it not such a solitary quality.  Their are aspects of his job that are not very inclusive.  We can't all sit around and edit a film or draw the same picture.  He includes us in the source of his hyperfocus by including us where he can.  More than just asking our opinions he has pulled us into his world and activities.  When he worked on a film a couple of years ago our family became intimately involved.  Our older girls were production assistants, the younger ones acted as extras, we were often on set if nothing else just to watch and be there with him.  We write stories as a family, make movies, deeply discuss art, literature, and music.  He proves all the time that hyperfocus does not need to be a solitary place, in fact it can be very inclusive as we look for ways to share our joys and obsessions.  Many of our fondest memories revolve around getting lost together in a wonderfully creative world come to life.

It has passed along to our children and they are know to come and share their inspiration with us and involve each other in their creative endeavors.  Fernando asks Hannah or Rachel for drawings of characters for his story, Mariah has Rachel help her with lyrics and has her sing her songs, Rachel takes lyrics to Mariah, they help each other with plot ideas for stories and movie, they share and pull others into their process.

The King as taught them that there is a satisfaction that comes in finishing, a confidence that carries you through to the next hard thing to conquer that requires the ability to hyperfocus.  When our daughter Mariah was about 15 she was already heavily into the world of composing music.  I think she fell into that world from the moment she took her first music lesson at 7 years old.  At 15 he had a tall order for her though.  He needed a song written for a movie he was working on - one that she could write and she and her sister could perform.  A song that would play during a movie scene where one of the characters, a young gang kid, is considering suicide.  He pulled her into his hyperfocus, spinning her off into her own.

It was a hard thing to do, she had to use all of the skills mentioned above to complete it. She had to pace herself and find balance using hyperfocus on a consistent basis to complete a task.  She had to put herself into that hyperfocus state when she didn't necessarily want to finding a process to do that, a place to best work, set the mood for herself.  She had to communicate when she needed help following inspiration because it finally hit.  Often she had to find ways to hold onto the inspiration and set it aside until she could work on it at the appropriate time and place.  Sometimes she needed help pulling herself from that place back into the flow of life.    It wasn't a song she ever would have written on her own, it was dictated by the script and mood of the film at that moment.  But she did it.  How priceless is the knowledge that you can apply yourself to a task that isn't what you would choose to do, one that is hard and painstaking, and you can finish with high praise.

ADHD is a life long disorder, the way their brains are wired is not going to suddenly change. They will struggle with how to manage and use the qualities of ADHD to some degree all their life but every bit of ground they gain, every bit of understanding, every tool they acquire changes what their future looks like.  They are fortunate that the Distracted King is there to lead the way, that he embraces his strengths and weaknesses and strives to show them that they can work on them everyday because he works on them everyday.  In the end is there really any inheritance more valuable than that.

*The song, Smoke and Mirrors, is written by Mariah Aro with help from her sister Rachel and performed by Rachel Aro with harmonies by Mariah.

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My #ADHD Family

I think I may have inadvertently stepped on someones  toes on twitter the other night when I posted that my #ADHD son had done something.  I suppose that's not hard to do when you only have 140 characters to sum up some situation or make a statement.  Anyone that has read my blog knows that I am nothing if not wordy and twitter is nothing if not concise.

I don't have any proof that I offended her, there was no direct mention of me in her post but it seemed like she was talking to me. This person seemed to be annoyed that a child would be identified as an #ADHD son and not just a son.  I am pretty sure that they thought the child was being classified by their disability, separated or singled out.

It did get me thinking, I do that all the time on twitter put my #ADHD son or daughter or husband.  Mostly I do it to sneak that stupid hash tag in there and not just let it hang at the end of a post.  I have never thought of it as separating out one of my children as ADHD - maybe because all three of my sons have ADHD and three of my four daughters have it and so does my husband of going on 23 years.

I don't think of it as separating them out because really in our house, my daughter without ADHD and I would be the minority- we would be the ones separated out as non-ADHDers.  It would be much easier and faster to list us as the ones without it than to list those with it.  In our house we are the minority, the not "normal" ones, and I would even go so far as to say the ones with the disability.  After all, we're the ones that are struggling to keep the pace of thought, of action, of energy.

Heaven knows when I say my ADHD son or daughter or husband I don't do it disparagingly, I know that they know I don't say it with any kind of hint that they are less than because of their ADHD.  I am sure if you would ask them they would tell you I say it proudly.  In fact, I have been asked before if I would change it if I could - if I would take away their ADHD if I could.  I think most parents would like to see their children not suffer and struggle but let me tell you what I have told each of them individually - UNEQUIVOCALLY I would not take away their ADHD if I could.  Doing so would intrinsically change who they are as people and I LOVE who they are.

I see their ADHD in every decision they make, every trial they struggle with, every song or poem, or story they write, piece of art they create, every scene they act in, every original idea they come up with.  I see it in their unique perspective, in every interaction they have with the world, in every choice they make.  Sure, it is a struggle for them to deal with.  I know there are days that they wish they didn't have it.  I would be lying if I said it wasn't a struggle for them and for me.  But in very real ways aren't we built as people by how we face our struggles and trials.  Don't we ALL face them in one form or another.

I see their ADHD and I am proud of them for who they are, what they create, for their compassion, for their empathy to others, for their quick wit, their humor, their perseverance, their dedication, their desire to be good and try hard in the face of great obstacles.

Maybe the world sees it as a disability, I don't see it that way.  I see it as as who they are, as their state of mind, and I LOVE those beautiful minds.

BRAVE - Embracing Your Inner Mother Bear

©2012, All pictures are the property of Disney/Pixar

We had anticipated its release for months, watched and re-watched the Brave trailers and teasers, planned what our excursion to see it in theaters would be like. Then we found out that, my husband was going to have to be out of town for the memorial service of his beloved uncle when the movie was released. We, ourselves, would have to be brave. We would wait for him to get home to see it.  Then his wonderful aunt stepped in with a solution. 

She sent tickets for us to go see the movie here while she and Mark would see it there and then we would Skype about how absolutely wonderful it was.  It was perfect.  Perfect, except that by the time we sat down in the theater I had been single parenting it for nearly a week. Yeah, I have a couple adult children but I will remind you that all of them have ADHD so they really aren't always 20 and 18 years old - they're on occasion, most occasions, more like 17 and 15 years old.

That day we had endured the accomplishment of chores (used the movie as a motivator), scorching Central Valley heat with no air conditioner, a trip with seven kids into the store to get movie treats (that's right I took seven indecisive kids into the store for treats). Not to mention trying to get from the entrance of the theater past all the distracting movie posters, video games, shiny lights, and survey-takers to make it to our screening. I had mediated arguments, consoled candy woes, redirected and redirected and redirected again, reminded pretty much everyone what socially acceptable behavior was repeatedly.

Finally, the screen darkened, the movie played, and I watched as the beautiful faces sitting down the row from me lit up with excitement and wonder. I took a breath, a deep one, I made it, and it all looked promising. Then I watched the movie... Wait a minute! This was my house on the screen if you multiply the fiery redhead a couple times and add another brother or two. Even the kids kept nudging me and whispering, "It's US!"  And the mom, the one constantly trying to keep order, teach social etiquette, and help her daughter grow into the wonderful powerful leader she knows she is going to be...me.

Suddenly, I wasn't so sure I wanted to be in the theater anymore. It wasn't the magical escape from reality I was expecting...it was my life!  And then the mother got turned into a bear. Really!? I smiled and nodded through Skype. Later, I would confide to my husband that the jury was still out on this movie for me. I would somewhat tearfully tell him that I was ready for him to come home.

Since then I have thought a lot about it.  I am that mom, I am a mother bear when I need to be, and I am okay with that. 

As parents of kids with ADHD or ASD or SPD or LDs or some combination thereof (and more), we don't have the luxury of not engaging in mother bear parenting. Our kids are brilliant but it takes a mother bear to uncover that brilliance so the world can see what we see easily.

We mother bears research disorders setting aside pleasure reading for books like The Out of Sync Child has Fun, Attention Deficit Disorder: The Unfocused Mind in Children and Adults, and Overcoming Dyslexia. 

We mother bears tell social stories, teach our children how to recognize when they're getting overstimulated by using number and smiley/angry face scales, we teach self-advocacy, right the world when it's unfair and unbalanced (which is nearly every day). We console children who know they're different from their peers who recognize that they will never get an award for staying on task, keeping a clean desk, turning in all their homework on time. 

We mother bears fight back very real demons like self-doubt and inadequacy. Sometimes those demons creep in on the heals of well-meaning but misinformed adults who don't understand the harm their looks, words, and actions can do. We stand between our children and those who don't understand, no matter who they are, sometimes even family, to advocate and educate.


We mother bears are up all night with kids who fight insomnia, depression, anxiety. We are at the school helping mediate in the classroom, we are in the principles office, at 504/IEP meetings often feeling guilty and accused when really we are just trying to protect and help what's ours.

We mother bears laugh at the comedic brilliance, at silliness, and uniqueness. We see greatness in our child's perseverance, diligence, and endurance. We glory in every bit of progress we see and trust me, we see the most minute bits of progress as huge steps. We see potential when the world sees trouble.

You know, I would rather be a mother bear than anything else in the world.  In some respects, I am here to say bring it on! This mother bear is here to stay. Because at the end of the day, like at the end of the movie, I know my kids recognize how important it is for me to be their mother bear. How do I know? My daughter has set a date for us to go see Won't Back Down. She says we have to see it together, "Because it's about a mom that takes on the school for her daughter, just like you."

"I Did Something" Spreading the Word About ADHD Awareness

When I answered the phone my husband didn't even say hello.  The conversation started with, "I did something."  This is usually is the part of the conversation where I say, "How much did it cost?" But before I could respond he quickly informed me that no money was involved.

See, I had been talking about my plans for upcoming ADHD Awareness Week and he had an idea.  He works at a news station, you can see where this is headed, when he said he did something he meant he had sent out an email to the producers of their local talk show, Central Valley Today, informing them of ADHD Awareness Week and suggesting me as the perfect guest.


Yep, he definitely did something.  Then he back peddled a bit by saying that they might not decide to run a piece on ADHD Awareness, neither of us believed him.  It wasn't long before I got an email asking for information, talking points, and graphics regarding Queen of the Distracted and ADHD.


I want to thank Amanda Jaurigui, Alex Delgado and KSEE 24 for having me on their show Central Valley Today and for taking the time to air this piece on ADHD.  Our ADHD community is scattered around the globe.  Often families and individuals who don't know what kind of support is out there feel isolated and alone.  Every solid news piece, ever accurate article, sympathetic blogpost, and telling tweet allow more of that community to find the support, information, and help that they need.

What Box? Where?

This weekend has given me more material for this blog than I really care to admit.  After all, do I want the world to know that my 11 1/2 year old son, Hunter, tried to flavor his bath water with lollipops.   For that matter do I want the world to know that the summation of the experience was that he thought he really needed more lollipops to make it successful.

Ironically, Mark and I had been discussing our families inability to think inside the box, in fact, as we were reviewing a few experiences it became clear that we are far beyond the notion of 'thinking outside the box.'  We are somewhere around, "Box?  What box?  Where?"

Some people would definitely have issues with our embracing our uniqueness so wholeheartedly.  I am sure that some of our extended family question our tactics, feel that we should conform more.  Teach our children not to embrace who they are and what they are but squash it as much as possible.  As if it could or should be willfully set aside.

I want to be clear that we are not saying we or our children should act any way they please anywhere they please.  We have standards we expect to be met and consequences both good and bad.  We encourage choice with the understanding that they make their choices but do not choose the consequences. We, Mark and I, feel and have tried to teach our kids to embrace their uniqueness while respecting others and the boundaries of the situation they are in.

Boy that sounds simpler than it really is, it is a lot of constant work teaching them to recognize and establish boundaries.

For example, we went out for Chinese food for lunch on Saturday.  Our favorite family owned restaurant, The China Garden (in Fresno, CA).  Hunter's medication was clearly wearing off, actually that was a common problem at the table, and he was getting more and more hyper.    His hyper is not running around jumping on things hyper, his brain speeds up, he will sit in the same spot but is very fidgety and talkative, usually obsessively about one subject. He spent a great deal of time turning straw wrappers into a surly disguise while repeatedly asking Fernando, who is like a big brother to him, about a certain aspect of a video game.

Here is where my standard were enforced.  You can use all the straw wrappers on the table, no matter how embarrassed we get.  You have to stop driving Fernando crazy, and instead of your volume getting louder and louder you need to tone it down.

Fernando had asked him to stop because he was in public, to Hunter he was not in public, he was in a restaurant we always go to.  Hunter's world and perspective had shrunk to the table we were at with family and friends.  I turned him around and had him look at the other tables, "Hunter, this is the public, the other people around you."  Ahhhhhh...public.

So we are adding a sidebar box called Box? What Box?  Where? to illustrate the rather unique thought process and perspective that flows so freely in our house.  The perspective that leads a little boy, Jaren, in a new ninja suit to offer a sweet and humble family prayer asking for protection and safety for his family, say amen and then add maniacally - "protect them except from me." Then strike a menacing ninja pose.

Or to come up to me this morning with these little toothbrush shaped erasers that his sister got for Christmas and tell me that he wanted  his own set of toothpaste and toothbrush erasers so he could draw a picture of nasty teeth and then clean them.

But why encourage that mindset? Mark said this morning, "Our imagination is fed by what others see as impossible because it lies outside the boundaries of their own BOX."

We feed it because on the other side is art, music, humor, literature, film, acting, science that might never be dreamed of or created if we never got outside the box.  I feed it in faith because I am more of a why person than a why not person like my husband.

Yesterday it was a most painful rendition of Phantom of the Opera by a 6th grader that was just beginning to sing, sung over and over and over again. It was her sister who cried because she couldn't read music after her first music lesson but was reading it two lessons later. Today it is Border Patrol sung by those same young women who now have a message to share and the voice to move it forward. (www.blissmethod.com)