I went out to dinner last night by myself, a glorious privilege! But when I left the restaurant, I thought I lost my keys. So I went back to where I was sitting to frantically search, and the people at neighboring tables very nicely helped me.
In the midst of my search I realized the nice man who was using his iPhone light to help me look in the seat cushions had recently won a Nobel Prize.
And my keys? They were in my bag.
A few months ago — early November or thereabouts — Jonah started losing hair on the left side of his head. It started gradually and then rapidly accelerated to the point where he was entirely bald on one side. The cause was very obvious: he pulled out his own hair. He has played with the hair on the left side of his head since he was a baby, usually while trying to fall asleep. For some reason, a few months ago he decided not just to twirl the hair, but to yank it out of his head. Probably he just finally gained the dexterity for it.
Mostly I was amused, because he looked very silly without half his hair. And then people became Concerned. This included his daycare teachers, my mother-in-law, my aunt, and finally, the doctor. Probably my mother was also Concerned, but she knows me well enough to not say anything. (Also, she has rampant trichotillomania so it would be a little rich, coming from her!)
This Concern manifested as a question: "What do they say about this?" At first I was confused. "Who are they?" I would ask. As it turns out, it was the same "they" who had told me not to eat turkey deli meat while pregnant. The nebulous "they" who have Opinions about things that Concern us, including but not limited to: people on the internet, your random mom facebook group, strangers on the street, and medical professionals.
The suggestion that I ask a doctor about this was particularly interesting to me. Do people really expect me to take my son to the doctor because he pulls out his hair? This did not seem like a medical problem, especially since I knew the cause. And don't people know that doctors are pretty useless unless you have a truly urgent medical problem? Every time I have taken Jonah to the doctor, even when he was very sick, the only help I received was advice to let him rest and drink fluids.
When I did take him to the doctor for a routine check up, the response was exactly as underwhelming as I imagined. I got a long lecture on the signs of autism, though I expressed no concern that Jonah is autistic. The same doctor asked me if Jonah could talk, and Jonah, the very friendly, talkative boy that he is, answered him in the affirmative. (I will not be going to this particular doctor again.)
"Could he be anxious?" my Concerned people asked. "Could he be stimming?" The answer, in both cases, was no. How did I know? I’m not sure, I just do! No one seemed very persuaded.
In the midst of all this Concern, I took Jonah to the local SuperCuts and had the nice man there shave off all his (remaining) hair. Jonah didn't mind because he got to watch Bluey while he got his hair cut. He looked only slightly less silly than he did when half bald, but it totally solved the problem. Turns out, you can't pull out your hair if you don't have any.
