More questions from Primera re her disabilities: "Am I a special needs child?" She's very interested in that term and keeps using it, and she's finally noticed the mort of books around the house with the words Asperger's or Autism in the title. I basically said that there were some things she needed work on but that she was learning the same things everyone else was. Which is true enough: I'm big into not answering more than she asks, though I try to act incredibly receptive and eager to polka through this conversational minefield (hey! Dancing Through the Minefield! Annette Kolodny! I used to read Annette Kolodny back when I used to be someone else! Feminist playful pluralism!).*

Lately I've been doing more reading about NVLD, b/c while it isn't a "real" diagnosis in the sense that it's in the DSM-IV, the materials do a better job of describing her deficits. She doesn't talk about train schedules all day; it's more about the weaknesses in what she does than it's about absences or aberrations, if that makes any sense (the alliteration sounds nice, but I'm having trouble articulating). I can sense, deep within me, a book-buying bender--I put the books into the online shopping cart and then don't hit "Proceed to Checkout." I have just that much control, but every morning I wake up thinking that I need to buy a book by Pamela Tanguay. I can't go on I must go on.

*I'm sufficiently narcissistic (oh yes, plenty sufficiently narcissistic) to be interested in the fact that my transformation into Our Lady of Special Ed, refuge of sinners, comforter of the afflicted, occurred late in life, that up until my mid-30's I'd been someone else completely. Certainly the wardrobe was different.