Life with Patrick

Before I had children, Madam Contest Master, fellow toastmasters and guests, I had some pretty strange ideas about how they grew up into adults. I used to think that when they were born they were blank slates – “tableau rasa” it’s called in Latin (I learned this in college). [Hold up blank slate] And that everything that happened to them formed their personalities. This means, of course, that every fault a kid has and rotten thing a kid does is all the fault of the parents.

Boy was I wrong. Life with Patrick taught me in no uncertain terms that when children are born, they come into the world with their own personality and abilities.

Let me explain…when my son Patrick was about 12 hours old he was examined by my pediatrician. The doctor gave me his report as I nervously held my screaming son in my arms.

p> “Mrs. Stinson, he said gravely, “you have an intense child, and I strongly recommend that you change your life (LIFE) to meet his needs instead of trying to impose any schedule on him.”

“ What?!” I thought, “this kid is less than a day old – he hasn’t anything written on his slate except perhaps the bright lights of the delivery room and his parents initial fumbling with the diapers”.

Little did we know but Patrick had “colic” written on his slate [write colic on slate] (we just couldn’t read his writing). He cried all the time. We tried everything to calm him and nothing worked. My husband rocked him all night, I walked him all day, nothing worked. He cried and cried. Did you know that sleep deprivation can cause you to hallucinate? Really.

The days and nights blended together. During one of those days (or was it night) I wandered into the kitchen as my husband Jeff was washing dishes. Patrick stopped crying! When he was finished, my husband turned the water off. Patrick started crying again. Jeff (a research scientist) turned the water back on and Patrick stopped crying!

Patrick was soothed by the sound of running water! He must have had his taste in “music” already, we couldn’t take credit for that! We made a 30 minute tape of the sound of water going down our sink and we took it everywhere. Most people with an infant travel with a diaper bag, the Stinson’s traveled with a boom box.

Our next parental surprise happened one morning when Patrick was about 18 months old. I came downstairs to start breakfast and noticed that the magnet letters that covered our refrigerator (and every other parent of a toddler’s refrigerator) were grouped in short words like “cat” and “me” and “boy”. Hmmm I thought, Jeff is having fun with Patrick’s letters. I rearranged the words into others – “dog”, “sit” and “ham” I spelled out. [this is demonstrated holding a metal pan with letters on it]

The next morning I noticed that there were new words on the fridge and laughed. I asked Jeff about letter game and he said, “What letters?” We both walked over to the fridge and realized that the words were only about 2 feet off the ground. [Twilight Zone sound affect]. Were aliens sending us messages at night while we slept? Was the house haunted?

Patrick joined us at the refrigerator and spelled out new words with the magnet letters, astonishing us. Early spontaneous spelling and reading were two abilities we just could not take credit for; Patrick must have arrived with this ability too.

Patrick became preschooler in the blink of an eye. He was a boy who could read at a fifth grade level but refused to be toilet trained! This baffled us and embarrassed us as well. He could not be promoted from the baby room at daycare to the preschool room until he used the potty. Finally at my wit’s end, I asked Patrick why he would not use the potty. He looked me in the eye and said, “Mom, when I am four I will use the potty.”

“ Patrick did you know your birthday is tomorrow? What kind of cake would you like, chocolate or vanilla?” I asked. Patrick shook his head, “No mom, my birthday is May 13th, I’ll show you on the calendar. Patrick was aware of dates and the calendar?! One more ability we could not take credit for.

Well, on May 13th, Patrick took off his diaper, and put on his underwear. He was 100% toilet trained – day and night; he never had an accident. So although we had to wait a year longer than most people, we never had to replace a mattress or sofa cushion.

Life with Patrick is taught me that when children are born, they arrive with their own personalities and abilities, and its our job as parents to learn to read their slates and magnetic letters [hold up slate and letters] so we can help them become the best people they can be.

Patrick is now 19 and beginning his second year of college. He continues to amaze us. Surprisingly for someone so brilliant, he has the handwriting of a third grader (worse than a doctor). Fortunately, these days we communicate using email so I don’t have to decipher his messages.