A Moment of Milo

One of the most fascinating people I know is a mere child, not yet even seven-years-old. Recently, this particular child has been garnering much attention in the public school that he attends. He has been diagnosed with every fashionable disorder from ADHD to being somewhere on the Asperger's continuum. He is a 'square peg' attempting to be forced into the 'round hole', generic-child public schooling system. It was this recent attention that prompted me to focus on him as the subject for yet another blog entry.
A child is somewhere between an object and a person from an adult's perspective - they are not fully developed 'people' and their behaviour and actions are always subject to interpretation. As such, the answers one might get from a personal interview with a child will always be interpreted, however unintentional, by our adult wisdom and psychoanalysis. In order to move a profile of my six-year-old son out of my first person interpretation, I will rather review some of the discussions that occurred in an interview between myself, Jennifer and a psychologist regarding his behaviour and imminent visits to said Psychologist.
She asked me to describe him so that she could evaluate my opinion of my son.
"He is a super-loving and hyper-energetic ball of curiosity and destruction. He needs and thrives on much attention and affection . . . so sweet, he's almost socially naive." In order to unpack this highly dense expository description, she asked me to provide her with examples of some of these items.
"What do you mean socially naive?"
"Well, . . . " I began, "at a recent family fun-fair at his school at the beginning of the year, as soon as we got there, he started bouncing up and down when he saw a little girl in his class, and screaming 'There's Rebecca! There's Rebecca!' and waving at her frantically." I replayed the scene in my mind and chuckled, "She was a little fat girl that didn't like him - her expression showed she wasn't exactly happy to see Milo. She grimaced and just kind'a waved back - probably just 'cause Marianne and I were standing there. . . He was totally oblivious - absolutely naive about her reaction, and he wasn't fazed at all! He just smiled and kept right on waving until something else caught his attention and he took off." It was true. In many ways he was naive about her disdain - totally lost in the moment - not careless, but carefree.
"What about curiosity and destruction?” she asked.
"Well, . . . first of all . . .” I paused. "He can make five pounds of mess from a meal that was only a half a pound to begin with." He certainly can spread a meal about his clothing and immediate vicinity. But he must get some in his mouth. His level of energy suggests that he is well nourished.
"And there was one time in the living room... I had spent the better part of an entire night cleaning and reorganizing the living room in our little two-bedroom apartment so that we had at least a little living space for us and our three kids. In the morning, I left to get groceries and Jennifer fell asleep on the couch. Upon my return I was stunned by the scene before me. Before I could even react, it took a moment to take inventory of the extent of the damage. There was black permanent marker scribbled all over the television screen, and up and down the freshly painted white walls. Every block of every type of construction set had been dumped out and mixed together into a pot-pourri in the middle of the floor. Every plant in the room was knocked over and spilling soil everywhere it shouldn't be. The finger paint jars were all tipped sideways and spilling on to the off-white carpet along with his works of art, which had far strayed from his papers. He held up one sheet and innocently asked, 'Do you like my art, Daddy?' I paused for a moment thinking of the whole room as a work of art - a physical testimonial to his energy and destructive creativity - a work of art that, in all my adult pretension, would have taken far longer than half an hour to destroy/create. In hindsight, it is a work of art of which I wish I had taken a photograph." But therein lies Milo's beauty. For adults, hindsight is 20/20 and often marred with regret. We become preoccupied with foresight. For a child hindsight exists only in the form of consequence - often imposed by adults - and foresight is non-existent. There is only here. There is only now. And every moment is a beautiful work of art.
Later, upon my return home from this interview, I became occupied with cleaning, or homework, or some such necessity, but was suddenly distracted by an urge to glance over at Milo. He was completely entrenched in a video game, bouncing away joyously, game controller gripped firmly in hand, and mesmerized by the cacophony of dancing sound and colour before him - he appeared a nearly hilarious paradox of perpetual motion and total attentiveness. With every minor success in the game, he would release a jubilant giggle, look over at his father to see if he had witnessed his triumph, and without a moment of disappointment in seeing that he had not, begin his bouncing anew.
Eventually, a clearly pivotal success was achieved and Milo couldn't help but share his excitement. He ran toward me with his already huge eyes widened in sheer exuberance, cheeks flushed, and gasping through his own breathlessness.
"Didja see?! Didja see, Dad?!"
"No, honey. I'm sorry, I didn't."
Milo was undaunted by my lack of attention to his gaming prowess.
"Well, dere was da guy (pant, pant) and he had two weapons and I couldn't beat him and I couldn and I couldn (gulp, wheeze) but den I dzumped into da blue spot and dere was a secret safe place (wheeze, pant) and I got him, I GOT HIM!"
His speech simultaneously made no sense at all and all the sense it ever needed to. Milo is a child - perfect in all his imperfections - and worth a room full of precious antiques, if only for the privilege of watching him artistically destroy. Milo does have a lot of energy. It does take a lot of energy to raise him and take care of him, . . . and to understand him. It would take a lot more energy to know I had missed any of it, though, . . . even a moment.

See you in heaven,
Shakes.