We continue to see remarkable changes in our daughter’s behavior, changes that we have to attribute to the ADHD medication she is taking every day. The changes are hard to describe, but nonetheless real.
She’s always played well with younger children, unusually well. She could pretend to be an animal, or play chase, and never seemed to be bothered by the difference in age. This was most obviously true when she played with her little brother.
But recently, she has lost all patience with her brother and the other young kids in the neighborhood. Their whining and demands have started to annoy her, and their little temper tantrums make her crazy. Just like a normal 10 year old. And while it makes her brother sad that they don’t play like they used to, it’s refreshing to see her acting more like her peers. It’s almost like she grew up a couple of years in just a few weeks.
And that’s not all that has changed. Here’s another example: She found a robin pecking at a dead baby garter snake the other day, and brought the snake back to show me. She was as excited as she ever was, and desperately wanted to keep it. We told her to take it outside and wash her hands really well.
Yesterday she announced that she had learned how to preserve the dead snake, specifically by putting it in a bottle and covering it with the purest alcoholic beverage she could get. And she wanted me to do it for her. I asked her if she even still had the snake, and she said it was in a bag in the garage.
Ick. I went to tell her mother that the girl had set her sights on preserving that snake, but I didn’t want to go buy the Everclear, or use the vodka we had in the house, and I thought the snake was too old. The wife agreed.
When our daughter came in, we carefully explained, like tiptoeing through a minefield, that we didn’t think it was going to work out because the snake had been dead too long. And then we waited for the inevitable explosion.
And instead of screaming, instead of arguing, instead of pounding down the hallway and slamming her bedroom door, she nodded and said “Yeah, I can see that. It’s probably been dead too long.” And she walked away.
You could have heard a pin drop as we looked at each other in amazement. Unbelievable. And we had been so sure that it was going to turn into an atomic tantrum that we were left open-mouthed.
And then there are the changes that have nothing to do with her medication. The other night my little girl shaved under her arms for the first time.
She is TEN.
But she definitely needed to shave her armpits, and she was getting self-conscious about it. So we got her a package of very feminine razors, and her mother gave her a quick tutorial. Now she’s all hot to shave her legs. We’re not quite ready for that just yet.
But it’s not going to be too much longer.