M was down for her nap. I had just read her a story and gone downstairs to unpack her preschool backpack. Her mother was in a comfy family room chair, holding the new baby and trying not to cry. She was in the throes of a bad postpartum depression. M did not really understand that anything was wrong with her mom; she only knew that her routine was all messed up.
M, then age 5, needed routine. She questioned every step of every day, even back before her brother was born, when there was little variation in our schedule. A sample of our non-stop dialog might look like this:
“Why are you getting the graham crackers?” For your snack. “Is it snack time?” Yes. “What am I having for snack?” Graham crackers and peanut butter. “Why am I having graham crackers and peanut butter?" Because you always have graham crackers and peanut butter. It’s your favorite. “Yeah.” Pause…”What are we doing after snack?” We’re picking up your brother. “Why?” Because school is over. “Now?” No, after snack. “When?” When you finish your snack.
When she was discombobulated, she retreated into repetition. After the birth of her brother, M tried to stop napping. She was, in fact, physically exhausted by mid-day, but the changes in the household had made her incredibly anxious. Rather than falling easily into a SOUND sleep, as she used to, M had taken to repeating a mantra. If I left her alone for ten minutes, the mantra usually fell off gradually, and she fell asleep. This particular day, the mantra did not fade away…
“Naaaannnnyyyy! I have something to shoooowww you!” Pause. “Naaaannnnyyyy! I have something to shoooowww you!” Pause. “Naaaannnnyyyy! I have something to shoooowww you!” Like a metronome for twenty minutes. I eventually said to her mother, “I’d better go see what she’s up to.”
M was sitting up in bed with her hands cupped as if she’d aught a frog.
“Nanny! I found this!”
“What did you find?”
She replied, “This is from my tushy!” at the same moment the smell hit. In her cupped hands was a ball of poo she had formed into a perfect sphere. I was freaking out inside, but I knew this was attention-getting behavior, I knew she was really confused by all the
changes in her house, so I began chanting my own internal mantra, “This is attention-getting. This is attention-getting. This is attention-getting.”
“M,” I said, artificially calmly, “Where does poop belong?”
She responded with characteristic enthusiasm, “In the toilet!” Concrete questions with concrete answers were comfortable for her.
“That’s right!” I agreed. “Now go put it there.”
How I stayed so calm, I do not understand, but it was absolutely necessary. M had difficulty understanding emotion. Her mother was a giant ball of emotion at the time, and M was working hard to sort out the range of emotions she was seeing in her house at the time. When people were happy to meet her new brother, she would ask, “Why are you a happy face?” When her mom cried, she would ask me to “do a sad face.” This little trick, upstairs in her room, was an experiment, I think. I knew I could not be angry with her, or she would do it over and over again, so she could make me “do a mad face.”
I filled the tub. She was covered in poo. It was even in her hair. I gave her the task of washing her hands in the bathroom sink while I ran all her bed linens down to the
wash. Her mom asked what was going on, and I just said, “You don’t want to know.” And in her state, she didn’t. My answer was satisfactory. This was just another example of M’s abnormal behavior, and she was in no condition to deal with it. M had been assessed for disabilities just a few months before her brother was born. The report stating that M had “pervasive developmental delays” arrived at the house at about the same time the postpartum depression hit. Telling mom about the events upstairs would just confirm in her mind that she was unfit to parent her children, and that she had done the baby an injustice by birthing him.
I finally told her the story years later, shortly before I quit working for them, when M was almost nine. She laughed her head off! By then, we all knew that M had a Non-Verbal Learning Disorder, diagnosed when she was in first grade. This was a much better diagnosis than her first one, because it gave us some specific strategies for managing her routines and her questions. She now gets speech therapy, tutoring, and physical therapy, and she is learning to fit in with her peers. But that day, up in the bathroom, I had so many questions about her future!
I put her in the bathtub and washed her hair and body. “Why am I having a bath during naptime?” Because you have poop all over you. “Is naptime over?” It looks like it is. “Then is it snack time?” After your bath. “Why am I having a bath before snack time?” I told you; you have poop on you. “Why do I have poop on me?” You tell me. “Because I took it out of my tushy.” That’s right. “Why I did that?”
That's the million-dollar question. How does one even begin to address that one?
To learn more about Non-Verbal Learning Disorders, visit:
http://www.med.umich.edu/1libr/yourchild/nld.htm
and
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Wow! You handled that a lot better than I would have.
I'm going to look at those links you put up; I don't know much about non-verbal learning disorders. Thanks for them!
Good! They're tricky, because people who have them are very verbal, and we think verbal= intelligence in all areas, when in actuality, these kids are struggling very hard to make sense of the world. They can do very well with the right services, but because it goes undiagnosed so often, a lot of kids just have to struggle, and get labeled problem children.
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/ediblewoman
to deal with someone else's shit. (pun intended!) I'd like to think that I could have acted as calmly and professionally as you did in that situation. But reality is, I probably would have flipped out over that. (I guess its good that I decided I'm not meant for elementary school kids!)
M is extremely lucky to have someone as understanding and compassionate as you for a nanny. So many developmentally challenged kids don't get the right kind of attention or help early on in life.
Kudos to you for having the personal strength to take care of someone who needed you so badly!
You know you care about someone when you can clean up their poop without gagging! That is the true measure of love!
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/ediblewoman
Agreed...I dont think i couldve handled that. At least not half as well as you did.
"Prefiero morir parada que vivir la vida en mis rodillas"
Wow, I remember when this happened. The story just gets better each time I hear it. What a unique thing, to be able to say you have seen a ball of poo.
but it's the part everyone gets hung up on!
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/ediblewoman
It reminds of the time that I was babysitting my little brother. He was actually in the bathroom at the time, and old enough to know how to use a toilet, so how this happened, I'll never know. He just stood, right in front of the sink, and went in his pants. Then of course, he took off his pants and ran through the hall naked and made one of the biggest most disgusting messes that I've ever had to deal with. I cleaned him up, and everything else that needed it, of course. Needless to say, when my parents came home, I hit them up for some extra cash...
See, I don't think I could have been that patient with my brother!
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/ediblewoman
I just read the symptoms of NLD on that first website, and it described my friend to a t. Now I know. Hopefully this will help me understand when she says the things she says. Thanks for the post!
:dances:
That's exactly why I wrote it! Your comment just made my day! It's a little known disability on the autism spectrum, related in some ways to Asperger's Syndrome. People who have it often get a bad rap because no one realizes they have a disability.
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/ediblewoman
You have quite the interesting stories, ediblewoman, and this is no different. I don't think I could summon the kind of patience you exibited, but then again I'm not used to having small children in the house.
By the way, thanks for the links. This is some interesting information.
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I would have been so mad at that little girl and her taking her pooout from her behind. But you dealt with it in the best way and when you mentioned she had the condition , that makes things more understandable. Its a good thing that the mother had a person like you to take care of her during a sad time.
It was a tense household for a few months! I don't work for them anymore, as they moved out of the country, but we are still in touch. M is doing great, and baby brother is almost 5 now! All my best stories are from my years with that little girl! She's a hoot!
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/ediblewoman
I would have been crying right along with her mother! It's amazing how you stayed so calm and thought only of how M was thinking and feeling. It really takes a special person to be able to have so much patience!
Well, it may have been a little self serving...I knew her well enough at that point to know she'd repeat the stunt if I gave it any attention! I was just trying to avoid cleaning up another mess like that! And to keep her mom from getting more upset. Postpartum depression is nasty!
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/ediblewoman
Yep, I wouldn"thave been able to hold my stomach for that one...You weave your stories so well that I can just see this poo infested little girl and my gag-reflex kicks into high gear..I'm not sure if I should be thanking you for this story or running from it. Either way, great writing!
My work here is done!
Thank you!
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/ediblewoman