lab monkey... that funky monkey... lab monkey junkie...

This is a very long story.

So I took SpazMonkey to his first of four sessions as part of a child social development research project. The nice young graduate students want to learn more about how children make friends. If I was a good christian girl, I'd tell them that watching SpazMonkey attempt to build legions of slaves to help him take over the planet might not be the best way to do so, but hey... they're paying me $80 for the privelege of entertaining my kids for four one-hour sessions - Spazmonkey in the lab, and they even babysit DramaQueen separately so I can participate in the study as necessary. So I'm kept my opinion to myself. Besides, every good study needs at least one subject that doesn't come within three standard deviations of the mean... extreme outliers: the spice of science.

The session started with Spazmonkey and me playing with some toys in a room - two different times, i was given a signal to exit the room for a few minutes. This was to "gauge his attachment response in an unfamiliar setting." It was about the same as his attachment response when I try to sneak off to the bathroom for a minute... he attaches himself, face-first, to the door that you just shut on him, howling like he's been stabbed. It's not so much that he misses me; it's just that he's got a strong suspicion that I might be having fun without him.

So in between his episodes of face-smashing against the glass panel in the door (which had been covered with a curtain that he promptly ripped off), we played with the toys in the room. One of the toys was a lego-ish building kit. We stacked some stuff. He made monster noises and smacks it all down with his best BWAHAHA archvillain laugh. The other toy was a "pet doctor" kit - white coat, stuffed doggie with an owie, velcro bandaid, stethoscope, spring-loaded toy syringe, toy scissors. So I tried to do the mommy thing and "engage" him in an "enriching" activity. He looked at me blankly as I went throug the motions of bandaging the doggie, until he noticed the scissors. "SSISSURSS!" He grabbed them and spent the last ten minutes of the toy session cackling to himself as he pretend-cut everything he could get hold of, starting with my hair. (Note to self: make damn sure all the scissors are hidden as soon as we get home.)

Next, we got a snack in a see-through box and a paper and pen. My instructions were to tell the boy we had to do some paperwork before we could eat. This was to gauge his "frustration tolerance." Yeah, again... my kid: not the best subject for this particular study. For one, he's little and skinny and mean and doesn't give a damn about food. The calories he absorbs through his skin while rolling naked in his cheerios can fuel him for days. For another, he doesn't give a damn about this "work" crap, either. Paper is paper is paper, and a pen is almost as good as a crayon. I was all of about three words into the paperwork (the task was to "make as many words as possible from the letters of these words") when Spazmonkey penjacked me and started writing his own words (politely ignoring my dictated suggestions and writing anything that involved lots of m's and w's, which, as far as he is concerned, is most words.) He handed it back to me long enough to demand that I draw him a Darth Vader, which he then colored in, this-is-a-picture-of-a-panther-at-night style.

So then we get to open the snack. "Cheechoes?" he asked hopefully, craning his neck to look in the box. "Nope," I said. "Teddy bear cookies and juice." "BOONYEAHNYEAH!" he yells, grabbing the banana. "OPEN!" OPEN!" So I peeled his banana for him, while he went on and on about how DEWISHISSSS it was going to be. This was apparently just a ruse (I *thought* he was the one that hated bananas...), as he used the time when my hands were occupied to grab the bag of teddy grahams, tilt it into his mouth and put-near empty it. I told him repeatedly that there would be no spitting games of any kind today (how many kinds are there, you might be wondering? Well... that answer would be even longer than this story...) He nodded and kept looking at me intently, nakedly telegraphing that he was waiting for me to look away so he could play a spitting game. (As a sidenote, that's really the only thing that has kept me on top of this dogpile of assholes... little kids aren't subtle, they aren't crafty, and they can't hide their intent anymore than they can hide an elephant under their beds. And thus do I maintain tenuous control of my household for one... day... more...)

Then one of the grad students came in to show Spazmonkey some pictures and ask him what they were. I was instructed to sit at the back of the room and not initiate any interactions. The boy could smell these instructions and, the moment that poor guy sat down across the snack table from Spazmonkey and officially assumed responsibility for the situation, the boy jammed a couple more teddy grahams in his mouth, took a big drink of his juice, and then made a gargling noise as he let the sewage-like mess ooze down his chin. The grad student, who had looked merely uncomfortable during the battering ram skull incidents, now looked as though he were reconsidering his career choice.

To gauge the boy's language skills, the grad student held up a book that had a different picture on each page. The protocol called for him to stop asking the boy to identify pictures after he got 6 consecutive ones wrong.

So, SpazMonkey made it through "dog" and "cat" and "car" ... he even came up with some words I didn't know he knew, like "basket" and "nest." He missed a few here and there, but nothing close to six in a row, so the pictures kept coming... and coming... Spazmonkey got bored. And I learned something about SpazMonkey today... following in EvilGremlin's footsteps, when Spazmonkey gets bored, he will immediately commence to f*** with your head mercilessly to entertain himself.

So, the pictures got harder; some of the pages had several items in a category, and they wanted the boy to name the category (ie, bear/giraffe/elephant = "animals.") So on one category page, which i believe was "fruit," the boy says, "Nummers." The graduate student, who had dutifully recorded non-standard-but-mostly-right answers (like "jaguar" for tiger, "backpack" for suitcase,) leaned in and asked, "what?" SpazMonkey leaed in and yelled, "NUMMERS! nummer sebben, nummer fwee. furty-sebben!" He continued to read only the tiny page numbers in the corner of the page (I had no idea he could count past twelve...) for the next several pages.

Then they get to an easy one: a penguin. "BIRD!" he yelled. "Yes, but what kind of bird is it?" the grad student asked. Giving the guy a look that said "you retard," Spazmonkey said - with an absolutely straight face and "duh" tone of voice - "Darf Vader bird." I have never heard that little mushmouth speak so clearly before. The grad student blinked... looked at his paper... looked back at Spazmonkey, who repeatd in his most condescending tone "Darf Vader bird," while gesturing helpfully at the man's pen. I was almost in tears at this point trying to laugh silently, as was the study coordinator - obviously much more comfortable around children than her poor student. She gestured at his paper as well, shaking with laughter. He wrote it down.

The next picture was a gold watch. Dark gold. A very particular shade of gold. "Cwock," Spazmonkey said, and before he could be prompted, he added, "SeeFweePeeOh Cwock." This time he was just too impressed with himself, and finally busted up cackling at his own joke.

So the next picture was a wall. Spazmonkey grabbed a teddy graham, smashed it into the page, and said, "Bear." The grad student said, "Well, yeah, but what about-" Spazmonkey cut him off. "TEDDY bear." The student checked that one off as a "miss" and moved on to the next picture.

Spazmonkey didn't know the answer, so he started telling a story instead. It involved lots of hand gestures, a range of facial expressions and vocal intonations, and not a single english word. The student tried to redirect the boy back to the actual picture, but Spazmonkey cut him off by raising his voice to yell "NONONONONO!" while wagging his finger in the man's face, then continued his monologue without skipping a beat.

So he got the next few right, and then came another one he didn't know. He quietly mumbled something completely unintelligible, looking at his shoes, his chin folding down into his chest and his shoulders slumping, almost as though he were embarrassed not to know the answer. "What?" the student asked gently, leaning down to hear. Spazmonkey sprang to life again, planting his hands on the table to propel his face to within inches of the student's face and yelled back, "WHAAAAAAAT?" The guy started, recovered, pointed back at the picture to ask again, "Do you know what this-" "HUUUUUUUUUUUUH?" Spazmonkey screamed. The poor guy - presumeably unable to accept the fact that this two-and-a-half-year-old was, in fact, f***ing with him - tried no fewer than half a dozen times to ask the boy what the picture was. Each time, SpazMonkey waited until he was two or three words into the question before interrupting with a loud "WHAAAAAT?" or "HUUUUUUUH?"

Then he answered one in spanish. Then he answered one in his best Darth Vader voice. Then he answered one with a mouthful of food and a burp. Then he gave several very wrong answers, followed by his own helpless laughter, followed by the right answer. There were also several other "unique" answers, a la "darth vader bird" and "C3PO clock." For example, when shown a picture of a skateboard, he immediately called it "DramaQueen wheels." (At this point in my first telling of this story, my husband's face went white and he asked, "You haven't been letting them ride the skateboards, have you?" My answer was no; not since they were a year old and still little and cute and willing to let you carefully push them around on the skateboards while holding them carefully upright the whole time. Now that they have opinions, independence, and more balls than sense, the skateboards are off limits until... well, probably college.) There were more, but i don't remember them now... i should ask for a copy of the videotape, but again, it could be used against me at that trial...

During this time, the study director asked me to describe, on audio tape, my child. Now, all the things that popped into my head - "spaz," "sociopath," "ten pounds of sh** in a five-pound bag," are all quite true, which is why I couldn't say them on tape. That's only going to get me in trouble at his inevitable future trial. So I stuck to creative, opinionated, daredevil, high-strung, etc. Not like she didn't get the idea by this time, anyhoo.

The final episode of the visit involved gauging the boy's reaction to "disappointment" in the form of an attractively wrapped gift box with nothing inside it. After thanking SpazMonkey for playing with him, the grad student handed him his prize... and then literally ran out of the room, probably because he had a pretty good idea of what was going to happen when that little turd opened his box.

Now, the boy was genuinely surprised to find it empty. His eyes got reeeeeal big... he poked his head in the box... put the lid back on and took it back off (just in case he didn't do it right the first time,) checked under the table... then, surprising the heck out of me, he just put the lid back on and laughed. I guess he appreciates a good prank so much that he doesn't mind being the target. In fact, he looked almost disappointed when the guy came back a few minutes later saying oops, he forgot to put the prize in the box, here you go... Instead of being grateful for the toy, Spazmonkey gave him this suspicious, exasperated look like, damn, dude, that was a good one, you almost had my respect there and then you go and blow it for a stupid Mr. Potatohead bath toy? I wash my hands of you...

here's the best part - the next three sessions of this study are playdates. me, spazmonkey, another child of the same age and gender, and the mother who is going to sue me for all the money i don't have. if nothing on those tapes ever ends up on one of either "america's funniest home videos," "cops," or "when animals attack," i'll be pretty durned surprised.