A few months ago, Martin stuck part of a toy—the pink hand of a rubber action figure, perhaps; we reached no conclusive determination—in his left ear, which his MAPS(-ish) physician (“Dr. E”) discovered during a routine check-up. The next day we trooped over to an ENT specialist for removal. That doctor proposed placing a hollow cone with lighted tip into Martin’s ear, then reaching through the tip with a long tweezer sort of device to grab the “pink thing” (as Dr. E had dubbed the object). The procedure, if Martin held still, would be painless and last only a second or two.

Martin let the doctor peer into his ear but drew the line at the tweezer thingy plunging in there. Each time the doctor got close, Martin yelled, cried, struggled, and protested, hands clenched over his ear. The doctor was all patience, leaving the room while I calmed Martin and returning to try again, and again, for almost an hour. Finally the doctor suggested that we restrain Martin, and I agreed. I took Martin on my lap, crossed my legs over his, and held his wrists straightjacket-style. The nurse used her palms as a vice to steady Martin’s head. Martin screamed “NOOOOOO!” The doctor put the hollow cone in place and deftly, immediately, extracted the pink thing. He hadn’t lied: Once we had Martin still, the procedure took less than three seconds.

Martin stopped screaming immediately. His body relaxed. He studied the pink thing now in the doctor’s hand. Then he said, “That didn’t hurt at all. I guess it was just my anxiety making me scared for no reason.”

What kid is this? I asked myself. Admitting he’d been wrong? Musing on the role his anxiety played? Holy self-awareness.

That was in September. Since then:

>He asked me if I could send something to school for him to chew on instead of his pencil eraser, because he feels like he needs to chew but doesn’t want to keep ruining pencils. (I rummaged through a kitchen junk-drawer and found a silicon pencil-topper.)

>When I asked him why he was jumping in the living room one afternoon—jumping and hand-flapping are rare behaviors nowadays—he replied, “I have some extra energy that I want to get out so I can stand still when I go to taekwondo.”

>While he still won’t admit to being tired, ever, he will make comments like, “I really don’t think I should be up this late,” or, “Maybe I don’t need to read before bed tonight.”

He even said to me, before Christmas, “Mommy, do you remember when I used to be real shy and have trouble talking to people? That’s getting better. Now I can talk to people.”

In the seven years since he was diagnosed, Adrian and I have never told Martin that he has, or had, autism. I guess maybe we’re going to call his spectrum disorder “shyness.” I can live with that, at least for now.

So we’re getting a lot more self-awareness. With self-awareness, on the other hand, comes awareness of the challenges that still distinguish Martin from his peers. He asked to reduce his services at school (physical, occupational, and speech therapy, plus resource room) because he dislikes being pulled so often from the classroom. Then he acknowledged, “I guess I have to keep going to OT because my handwriting still isn’t as good as the other kids’.” He wants to join the school band next year, playing either trombone or percussion. He asked, “Mommy, what if next year the band teacher kicks me out because I can’t concentrate?”

I’m very thankful that Martin is suffering less anxiety these days and has better emotional control. The Friday before Christmas was belt testing at taekwondo. Most of Martin’s friends (as always, I use “friends” loosely) from his green-belt class—the kids with whom he achieved green belt together in September—were awarded blue belts. Although he has attended more practices than any of those friends, Martin was not eligible to test for blue belt, because he’s had trouble mastering the new forms and doesn’t have the third stripe on his green belt yet. Adrian took Martin to taekwondo the next afternoon, and I warned him that Martin might become upset or even have a meltdown when he saw his friends with their new blue belts. (The Saturday class is combined orange, green, and blue belts.) But he didn’t. According to Adrian, Martin became upset when he realized I’d forgotten to pack his green belt (way to go, me!), calmed down as soon as the dojang lent him a belt for the day, and never said a word about missing the blue-belt test.

It was September when Dr. E spotted the pink thing in Martin’s ear and sent us to the ENT specialist. In November we had another appointment with Dr. E. That morning, Martin said, “Dr. E won’t find any pink thing in my ear today!” When Dr. E went to look in his ear, Martin said, “Dr. E, you won’t find any pink thing in my ear today!” So I couldn’t believe my ears when Dr. E said he saw a pink object in Martin’s ear. Plainly, Martin thought he was being funny and had shoved something in his ear for Dr. E to find. Back to the ENT specialist we went. This time the object proved more difficult to dislodge, and Martin had to hold himself still while the doctor threaded a noisy vacuum tube into the ear canal. Martin did beautifully. Not a peep during the 20-to-30 seconds the doctor needed to extract what appeared to be a chunk of pencil eraser.

Martin gave me various stories about how the eraser entered his ear, ranging from “no idea” to “I had my head resting sideways on my desk while other students were throwing erasers around.”

Increased self-awareness—yes. Increased maturity—not so much.