Day 6, 2009

Hayes ate one-half the freezer at Bradford Bath and Tennis Club today, carrying on the Leer girl tradition of only being famished in expensive restaurants. In 3 progressive trips to the snack bar, Hayes ate 1 personal pizza, his chicken tenders and half of Jack’s friends’ chicken tenders, a hearty order of french fries, and a popsicle. He was begging for more on his 4th trip, but I cut him off fearing I would be famous for the main pool being drained during the most popular day of the summer.

Apparently he was just gaining strength for the stunning tantrum he threw after arriving at the far end of the club grounds, stiffening his body horizontally like an ironing board in my arms when I picked him up, and screaming the whole way back to the front desk,
“OLD MAC DONALD! OLD MAC DONALD!
EEEEE-IIIIIIIII-EEEEEEEE-IIIIIII-OOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!
OLD MAC DONALD! OLD MAC DONALD!!!” It was truly an E.F.Hutton moment at the main pool. He was so loud that I half expected the man serving on court #5 to call out his choice of a pig or a horse, but I remained strong (except for a strawberry popsicle) and made him go with me to make a phone call.

Old McDonald aside, I am struck at how he manages to get his point across with a limited vocabulary. I tried to pass off some slightly overdone pancakes on him yesterday at breakfast (Ok, fine…burned), and he pushed them away after pointing to the brown part, saying “bad chocolate.” He is also very good about screaming at the top of his lungs while he reports what he’d like to do to you when he’s angry: “HIT YOU!” or “BITING BAD!”, rather than actually partaking in the forbidden activity. A lot of people could learn from him.


Did I mention that Hayes went to Times Square on Day #5? We went in to ride the ferris wheel at Toys R Us, which turned out to be a bust, as he panicked at the last moment and couldn’t get on. The ticket taker saw him struggling and had opened a special gate to the front of the line for us, smiling at Hayes as she whispered that her 2 yr. old nephew just got diagnosed. I think there is a growing set of people like that in the world today, whose hearts have also been ripped open by this diagnosis, that will see Hayes as they see their own child. They will immediately “get it”, and they’ll open gates for him.


He could not stop blessing things last night at bedtime, and as we had blessed all the usual suspects, I was at a loss on how to wrap it up without making him upset, so we added song lyrics he likes, and I think we did Rodgers and Hammerstein proud:

God bless cream-colored ponies
God bless crisp apple struedel
God bless door bells and sleigh bells
God bless schnitzel with noodles
God bless silver white winters that melt into spring
God bless all of my favorite things.
Pg. 2

Our dance card is very full tomorrow, starting with our town parade and picnic, and on to pool games and possible fireworks, although we’re fine if it doesn’t work out noise-wise... Many people would have been devastated that they blew their chance to ride a three story ferris wheel in Times Square. Hayes can’t stop delighting that he got to wave to Jack riding it for him.

He told me tonight, “Fireworks fire is hot. Hurt you”. We cleared up that misconception, so I’m hoping this will be his his first real live fireworks show. It’s perfect for him: almost everyone has their ears plugged that night!