Asperger's. It's what's for lunch.

It's been a tumultuous month. It is about a month ago that my house was a mess, and I heard a knock at the door. I looked, and realized that it was children's services. My husband and I has signed up to be foster parents in our county, and they called to tell me two weeks earlier that they needed to take our photo for documentation purposes. I thought they were here to take my family's photo. Not so. To my surprise, they were here to inspect my children.

To make a long story very short, it turns out that my school age daughter turned a chapped lip into, "My mother beat me in the face with a hairbrush." I was absolutely mortified. And mad that my daughter could concoct such a ridiculous story. I can laugh about it now and honestly say, a hairbrush would not be my choice of weaponry. (For the record, I DO NOT beat my children, that just adds more insult to injury.) After the smoke cleared, she buckled, and told me that she made the whole story up so that "name witheld", the teacher's aide she told this story to, would be nicer to her. (Which makes me wonder what the hell name witheld was treating her like in the first place. ) I asked her if it worked, "Was name witheld nicer to you after that?" And she blatantly said, "Yes." To make a long and boring story even shorter, this event led us to therapy. It's fashionable anyway, these days, to say you have a therapist, right?

After explaining the strange series of events and behaviors that led us to this point, literally from birth, along with a barrage of other habits, I explained to the shrink were not wanting to be held as an infant and being able to play the violin without ever reading a note. She plays beautifully, (for the past four years) had had two recitals, and only has the sheet music up there with her because everyone else does. When she was about 2, I had suspected that she was autistic because of her rocking and banging her head off of the floor compulsively. Along with stuffing paper in her hears that she would fold into 8ths. I thought it was pretty creative for a two year old, but the emergency room didn't think so at the time. I had her evaluated, and a roomful of specialists told me that there wasn't a problem, that she needed to socialize. Send her to daycare, they said. Thanks for nothing. I smiled and thanked them and left thinking that maybe I'm paranoid.

So the shrink sent me home with a photocopied paper and the diagnosis. I couldn't wait to get home and read about it. Asperger's. I had never heard that word up until this point. There is a family member in our family who is very accomplished chemist, speaks five languages, and locks himself in his room to count football cards at night. Yes, we have a bingo. All this hoopla about vaccinations causing the problem, well, I don't know. I know that I can see many of these characteristics throughout my family, whether or not they are genetic or environmentally inherited, I don't know. At first when I was doing the shrink assigned research, I saw myself completely. Now, I don't know. Has it been so long that I've just adapted?

I remember doing so many of the same things that my daughter does. But if I did have it, would I even notice that the things she does are strange? On the other hand, I know it has to be something, because reading the description for diagnosis draws so many parallels. It's just depressing to think that all of your enduring qualities are just a syndrome. After a couple sessions with the shrink, and then suspecting my other daughter of having some Asperger like qualities, and telling my family, and pissing certain members of my family off, and having children's services call me back and recommend some family counseling, ---ugh. What a month. There isn't enough family counseling in the world.

I realize that the teacher's aide had a moral obligation to report suspected abuse, but it still irritates me. And knowing that my daughter did it so "name witheld" would be nice to her. I didn't even know what (name witheld) looked like until my daughter brought home her class photo. The one consolation that I have is that she looks like a medieval page, complete (from the photo) with bad complexion and Dutch Boy haircut. My daughter always referred to her as "name witheld the lesbian" (stereotypes are common in kids with Asperger's). name witheld, by the way, I am told, is married with children.

I read about this syndrome though, and it seems that it works out very good, (Bill Gates, Einstein) or very bad, (homeless person pissing pants under a viaduct.) I read about institutionalization, and then later how Asperger's has been dubbed "Geek syndrome" because of the cluster area in Silicon Valley. This is just so surreal.

More later, I'm going to go sit in the tub and drink my blackberry Jewish table wine while I have the chance.