Wednesday, January 24, 2007

If I Only Had the Nerve

My son growls before every third or fourth word. He’s four years old and I’m pretty sure that
this is not normal. His growling is
just the latest in a series of ticks that my son seems to be working his way
through. The sound is difficult to
explain and very strange. It can be
best described as a morph between the cowardly lion and Chewbacca. He only growls the first syllable of some
words, with no particular consistency. My friend and I discussed it yesterday and could not help but notice the
similarities between my son and the strange young lady who sang “If I Were the
King of the Forest” for the American Idol judges
. It is truly a talent, not exactly the one I would have wished for
him, but a talent none-the-less.







Cowardlylion
My poor kid. Every time
he spoke yesterday my friend would have to cover her mouth and chuckle to herself
which, of course, was contagious. We were fleeing rooms and giggling fairly often during our trip to the
Children’s Museum. My friend
was totally baffled by his behavior. Me, I wasn’t even phased. I have
come to terms with my son’s ticks because I was forced to come to terms with my
husband’s many years ago. It is an
involuntary habit that he comes by honestly and the best thing that I can do
for him is to, first of all, try not to blatantly laugh in his face (this is probably hurtful and counter-productive). Secondly, I need to
just pretend it isn’t happening and, like his perpetual cough of a few months ago,
this too shall pass. Someday in the
not-so-distant future my son will speak without growling. Granted, the growling will probably be
replaced by rapid blinking or throat-clearing but, as long as he is not
screaming out random obscenities and racial slurs, I’ll survive. I’m just praying that this seemingly genetic
affliction is reserved for XY chromosomes only. Please, don’t let my daughter have ticks. It’s hard enough for little girls in this
world without random growling.







6 comments:

  1. Uncle Chris can help him with that throat-clearing tic if you're interested. . . .

    ReplyDelete
  2. As the giggling friend, I must say that although I was baffled at first, I have now come to know and love the latest Hale Family Tic. It's actually quite charming in a Truman-esque sort of way.
    Thank God that He didn't make us all alike and gave each one of us a unique personality. How boring would life be if everyone behaved exactly the same? Truman is just doing his part to make life a little more interesting for the rest of us--he certainly entertained me quite a bit yesterday. :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Having had ONLY sons, we can't help with what will become of the poor sweet 'Tater, let's hope (shrug,shrug) that it's in the genes, and isolated to male children. Time will tell, AND ONLY TIME will tell what special pecularity T.P.H. will finally end up with, just rest assured, he WILL have one, and, like the people close to me, his friends and family will live with it!!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Darn those Hale boys and their genetic ticking!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Jacquelyn-
    It's one thing to be grateful for the diversity of the human race. It's an entirely different ballgame to feel grateful that your son makes a major contribution to that diversity by way of his bizarro ticks. I love him desperately and relish his individuality but I pray that he outgrows these ticks someday.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Papa Dale-
    One I can live with. Let's just hope he doesn't have a plethora of different ticks to draw from!

    ReplyDelete