A Mommy Story

I realize I don’t share as many stories about Mira on this blog. It’s not that there aren’t stories to tell, they just tend to be short and sweet, even if the subject herself is FULL of drama.

Oh yes, Mira is the supreme high ruler of drama.

Being an only child, I’ve never really understood sibling rivalry, but I’m often told that a younger child will often try to be the opposite of their older sibling in an attempt to stand out. After Cordy’s diagnosis with autism, we held our breath during Mira’s babyhood, waiting to see if she would follow the same path of development. But Mira had different plans.

She was given an evaluation when she was nearly three, and it was made very clear that although Mira had a significant speech delay at that time, there was no question that this was a social and engaging little person. She’s in-your-face, guerrilla-style social – if you’re not paying attention to her, she will make sure you notice.

And so while Cordy prefers to be alone, keeps her thoughts to herself, avoids new experiences and changes in routine, and has little opinion about her appearance, Mira has proven to be the opposite. She’s loud, opinionated, craves new experiences, hates being alone, and demands to wear dresses as much as possible so she can “look pretty.” She always wants to be the center of attention.

While Mira is the life of the party, there’s one other difference between the two sisters that I wish wasn’t there. Cordy is often careful in her movements like a cat. Mira? Mira prefers to move first, think second like an overexcited golden retriever. She’s blissfully unconcerned with where her body is moving in space as long as it gets there quickly. Or until it meets an object abruptly while traveling at high velocity.

Mira is a klutz. Thank goodness I didn’t name her Grace, because that would have been tragically ironic.

I absolutely love her enthusiasm over everything, but too often she ends up hurt when she’s not paying attention. Mira can take any normal, routine activity and turn it into an extreme sport. Walking across a room can result in a sudden loss of balance (tripping on air?) and crumbling to the ground.

Walking down the stairs isn’t even safe when holding the rail. Holding the rail as she falls only leads to her twisting her body until her hand snaps free so she does a full barrel roll the rest of the way down.

Attempting to sit down in a chair can lead to bouncing her head off the table and ricocheting her body onto the floor several feet away. (True story. Happened in her preschool class. Her teachers were amazed she was OK.)

Going to watch The Muppets at the movie theater can lead to…well…this:

Fifteen minutes before the end of the movie on Saturday night, Mira had to use the bathroom. Aaron quickly took her out of the theater and they were back within five minutes with no drama. But as she was walking down the row to get back to her seat (and AFTER stepping over my purse without catching her foot on it) she somehow ended up on the floor.

She started to cry, so I scooped her up into my lap and shushed her, telling her it was OK and she was fine and the movie was nearly over and hey, look at those silly muppets! She tried to stop crying but couldn’t, and it wasn’t until I finally turned to look at her face in the dim theater that I noticed the “tears” running down from her eye looked awfully dark.

When Mira took that trip to the floor, it appears that she tried to stop her fall against the metal seat legs. With her face.

At that point it looked like the whole area around her eye was bloody and I couldn’t tell where it was coming from. I ran out of the theater with her and into the bathroom, grabbing handfuls of paper towels to stop the bleeding from the gash next to her eye. Thankfully the eye itself looked unharmed, even if she managed to injure nearly three-quarters of the space around her eye.

Once the bleeding slowed down (and Mira was no longer freaking out) I took her out to the front lobby and begged for some ice to put on her eye. At that point she was telling the lobby attendant how she had to leave the movie when it was really sad. Rollin’ with the punches, that kid – she would rather talk about how the movie was sad rather than recall how she nearly took out her eye.

Yesterday she told her entire class the story of how she clobbered herself while watching The Muppets, with appropriate dramatic pauses and a little acting it out, so I think she’ll be OK.

I hope she might learn to be more careful after accidents like these, but deep down I know she’ll find new ways to injure herself soon. At least she’s got a knack for drama, so she’ll always be able to spin it into a fantastic story for her friends.

No amount of spin is going to calm my nerves, however.