My Little Lab Rats, A Walk Down Video Lane

I just enrolled Leelo in the MYND Institute's Regre5sion and Imitati0n in Ear1y Autism study. As with Mali's enrollment in the Infant Sib1ings study, this is a mutually beneficial situation in that the results of his developmental and clinical assessments will be shared with us. The study includes blood testing, and they will let us know if they see any elevated levels of mercury, etc. And they're paying us! ($20/visit, but still.)

They're also going to be looking at videos of Leelo from birth until age two.

I've been looking over these videos myself lately to see how he compares to Mali. The differences so far are fairly significant. Things that we thought were slightly odd at the time become, with the benefit of hindsight, smoking guns. A five-month old baby will not look at me or the camera after five minutes of cajoling? That is just not normal. He also had a really wacky, inappropriate laugh. At the time it was cute, now it just sounds alarming.

Also interesting is to note how much he sounds like two-year-old Iz. Similar voice, many similar phrases: her "I want to watch Te1etubbies" is, for instance, indistinguishable from his. Perhaps he'll start running around telling people that Captain Kirk is from Iowa, as well.

It is amusing to see today's monsters scampering about in their four-years-ago incarnations as teeny, tiny kids. Eliz and Sophie are miniscule, as is Merlin. And there, in the background of the Mom's Club spring party, is a flash of purple hair to remind me that that was the day I met Badger.