Labeled by Size
“My peed,” my seven-year-old says from the back seat.
Keeping my eye on the road, I hoist her backpack to the front and feel through its contents. At the end of the school day, Natalie often brings home everything from her locker—gym shoes, noise reduction headphones, an extra change of clothes. Today, she has only packed her lunchbox.
“No, you didn’t,” I say. “You didn’t pee.”
“Yes, my did. My peed.”
“I peed. Say, I peed.”
“I peed . . . My sorry.”
We are halfway to occupational, speech, and physical therapies—the special needs trifecta. The weekly appointments are scheduled back-to-back to accommodate an hour commute, a monotonous route past tiny houses, fall-colored trees, and random businesses: a gas station, garden nursery, and scuba shop. I consider going back home, but that would mean canceling three appointments at the last minute.
“Why, Natalie? Why did you pee?”
“My didn’t know my had to go.” She whimpers. “What my do?”
“I’ll look for a store. Maybe we can buy some new pants.”
Pulling into a closeout retailer, I hope they carry clothing. Though I have Natalie wear her coat, her wet bottom is clearly visible. I walk closely behind. A scribbled sign advertises a clothing sale. I scour every rack.
“Do you know of any children’s pants?” I say to idle cashiers.
“We sold out in the last couple hours,” one says. “You might find something in there.” She points an embellished fingernail at a metal bin labeled Kids.
While I dig into four feet of t-shirts, the clothes roll as if in a dryer. A pair of shorts surfaces, gray with sporty orange stripes. Eighty-five cents later, I tear off the tag with my teeth as we run to the car. Inside, I strip down Natalie’s wet leggings and toss them on the rubber mat. The shorts fit.
“My cold,” Natalie says.
I cover her with a stadium blanket then turn up the heat.
Half an hour later as we pull into the facility, we pass six-foot crayons that promise fun. Inside, therapists line up and wait for their next clients. I waste no time on salutations and skip to explanations.
“We had an accident on the way,” I say to Sophia, Natalie’s speech therapist. I describe the meager selection at the only-store-possible. Apologizing has become my new parental superpower.
“There’s extra clothes in the bathroom you’re always welcome to,” Sophia says. She bends down to Natalie. “So what are we working towards today?”
“Culver’s,” Natalie says. She reviews her order as Sophia leads her away.
To create a family atmosphere, the waiting room offers slouchy furniture. I slump at the end of a couch. Like siblings, we seven parents ignore each other. One snoozes, the rest scroll through phones. We maintain this façade until a child enters the room. Then we become curious. The waiting room is a microcosm of home, of routine conflict. Some of children’s biggest challenges are displayed: transitions, wait time, compliance. In public, parents must act like “good parents.” They say things sweetly. They avoid correction and resort to supplication. They beg. They repeat themselves. Everything takes longer. Yet I crave these confrontations. When a parent struggles, I am uplifted. I am not the only one.
My back is turned to the door, but I recognize the boys who enter by their quarreling. One brother struggles with impulse control. The younger brother mimics his behavior. As they antagonize each other, the mother retreats to an armchair, zombielike. Over several months, I have watched her digress from appeasing her children to withdrawing. The therapist hauls the older brother off. I can hear the receptionist typing again.
Another child enters and heads straight for the coloring table. His mother perches on the end of the fireplace and takes a work call. The boy grabs handfuls of crayons and rains them down on the carpet. While the mother barks orders into her phone, she drops on her knees to clean up the crayons.
A client returns to her mother. To me, this teenager with Down syndrome represents a grown-up Natalie with her golden bob, short stature, and sparkly eyes. She beams as her therapist reports good effort. Her reward is a visit to her father’s fire station. I realize that bribing Natalie for good behavior will be a long-term strategy, one that makes me uncomfortable. It feels manipulative to tie a reward to every request. I wish Natalie would get into the car, behave in school, and cooperate through a doctor’s appointment with the languid surrender most children adopt.
An employee whispers in my ear. “The therapist has requested your assistance.”
I hop up and make my way to the small therapy room. Sophia hunches on a child-sized chair; my daughter crouches under the table. Though I would like to hide with Natalie, I coax her to her seat. I cling to a hope that the clearer Natalie’s speech becomes, the less she will get teased, the fewer times she will be called the r-word. I examine the project laid out on the table and determine that preposition practice overwhelms her.
“Wouldn’t it be silly,” I say moving parts on the festive fall scene, “if the cloud was on the squirrel.”
“No,” Natalie says, righting the laminated pieces, “not on the squirrel, in the sky.”
Sophia smiles and takes notes. Tethered to data keeping, she is like a teenager checking social media. I want to read the notes and make sure she caught Natalie’s on and in.
They move on to “Natalie’s Choice,” hide and seek. Natalie hides Sophia’s pen. Sophia takes too long wandering, pretending to be stumped.
Natalie moves to the rescue. “My found it. In the trash.”
Sophia praises her while scribbling more notes. I ponder Natalie’s choice of hiding places for Sophia’s pen.
After two hours and fifteen minutes of therapies, Natalie appears with a good report. Before leaving for Culver’s, we make a bathroom stop. On the shelves under the changing table, bags of clothes are labeled by size. The abundance of clothes signifies the magnitude of need, and I am comforted by solidarity.
On the way to the door, we pass a little girl with braces on her legs. I recognize the white cane for the blind in her hand, but at 24 inches, it is the smallest version I have ever seen. The girl exudes a tranquil countenance, and I wonder if she is aware of her obstacles. When her mother whispers something in her ear, she beams the most open and unselfconscious smile I have ever seen. Her joy permeates me and fixes something inside.
We leave the building, and Natalie’s bare legs are exposed to the autumn wind. We run to the car, joining a stream of leaves scuttling across the parking lot. As I tuck the blanket over her lap, she reminds me of her Culver’s order, the one that never changes. I give her a kiss, and her cheek is the softest thing I have ever felt.
