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This is the email I sent to a poster on Park Slope Parents who was concerned that her "VERY active little one" might have ADD. My favorite response to her email began with the line "My wife and I have an extremely active 2 year old whom we secretly refer to as 'the shark'."
-M
hi stacey and lucas,
well, your kid sounds like mine. oliver is just over 17 months. he is a bundle of energy. very social, outgoing, generally really happy, and always on the move.
when we take him on a drive, he carseat dances to 80's tunes. though he can zone out for a bit. but i really can't have him in the car for more than 20 minutes. when i take him shopping, (oh, we moved to
savannah a few months ago, so we go to big box stores and drive around now), i can put him in the shopping cart for a few minutes, but he flips out and wants to get down and touch everything and run around, and if i don't let him he gets whiny and will eventually tantrum. when i put him down, he starts to pull things off the shelves. today at the supermarket he was pissed when i wouldn't let him throw lemons out of the shopping cart.
he can sit still when we're reading a book to him, but if it's a book with moving bits, which are his favorite kind, he wants to rip them out. he can entertain himself in his playroom if it's on his own
terms, but he gets upset if *i* walk away from *him.* he climbs onto the cat and dog and rides them. he demands to see the belly buttons of strangers, and generally they show them to him. etc etc etc etc
we had him evaluated through early intervention because he wasn't eating solids and we had some concerns about his fine motor skills too, but he came out with a clean bill of health and he utterly
charmed the interviewing therapists.
so, long story short, we're not worried about him at all, but we're very tired. we had been planning on starting to try to conceive a second child in a few months, and frankly, the idea terrifies me. i
don't know how i could ever handle another like this.
i think it's just who he is. and i adore him. it's just a tremendous amount of work, so all sympathies to you.
-michelle, mom to oliver