Twenty. End of discussion.

Today my son had an early morning evaluation for the special ed preschool.  There's so much irony in that statement, but for now let's go with it.    Since I don't think my blog readers all know about my middle son, I'll do a brief 'irony' explanation.

My son has an IQ of 136.   It's a tested fact.   He's 6 days too young to start Kindergarten in the school system out here this upcoming year.   He misses the cutoff.   Barely.   He's EXTREMELY intelligent and EXTREMELY defiant. I say those in the same sentence because there's some sort of definite correlation.

My son refused to even look at majority of the things they put in front of him today.   He tore papers, threw blocks, kicked, punched, laughed, destroyed the things in the room... outright refusal.

At one point the evaluator put out a set of blocks.   Both evaluators tried to get my son to turn his chair to count the blocks.   He refused.   I asked him to please do this.   I begged and pleaded.   I offered to go to the place I hate the most because I just wanted to get through this freaking evaluation.  At this point we'd spent over an hour and a half of his refusing to do things and telling them he was bored, while we all begged and tried to get him to partake in ANYTHING.   He was defiant as all get out.

He glanced for a split second and yelled "TWENTY!"

They tried to get him to count.   1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 16, 100, 138, 190... you get it.   There is no rote count to 20 with him.

We asked again... how many blocks are there -- let's count.   He refused to turn and even look.  He continued facing the other way with his back to the table where the blocks are and he screamed at the top of his lungs:

"TWENTY! TWENTY! TWENTY! TWENTY!"   

Unsure of what to do they prod him.  "Could there be 15 maybe?  I think I count 15"

Still looking at the wall "TWENTY! I TOLD YOU THERE'S TWENTY!"

"I think it's actually 17"

(Looks at evaluator like there's a very strong possibility he's going to punch her)
" I. TOLD. YOU. THERE'S. TWENTY!" 

The evaluators stare at each other and give the "IDK?" look.  They whisper "I mean... I don't know what to put for this one?"

I stop trying to get him to pay attention and I count. It takes me a few seconds.

There's ... twenty.

There's my kiddo, once again, flooring the crap out of people.

Until next time...