When Nicole began to walk things really began to pick up. I began noticing things that just didn't seem quite right in her behaviours. For one thing, she never walked. She ran! She ran from morning till night. Her main activity was to run up and down our hallway...all day! Back and forth...back and forth. This went on for months. I spoke to my doctor about it and the possibility that maybe she was hyperactive. His response was, "Don't feed her so much sugar."

Now that really ticked me off! What the heck did he think I was feeding my child? Of course, it didn't help matters much that when we attended the doctor's office Nicole sat like an angel staring around at all of the different things in his office and did not display any of the unusual behaviours I had been witnessing on a daily basis. I learned one thing that day. Doctors do not listen to mothers. They assume you are over-reacting unless they can see the evidence for themselves.

It wasn't until a year and a half later that he got a little taste of her behaviours. On that day the doctor was running late with his appointments. We had to wait 45 minutes in the waiting room and then an additional half an hour in his office. By the time he came into the examining room Nicole was in a rage. You see, these periods of uncontrollable rage had begun shortly after she began walking as well. I had also mentioned them to the doctor and his response had been. "It's the terrible twos. All children have temper tantrums to some degree during that age." Hmmm. Maybe, but these seemed a bit extreme to me. Anyways, this fateful day he finally got to witness a minor (or what I considered minor from my experience) rage. He stood there wide-eyed and said. "I think maybe we need to get her tested." My response was, "That is what I have been asking for for over a year now!"

There is just so much to tell you about her behaviours I know I keep bouncing back and forth and hope that I am not appearing too disorganized in my story. During this time from about 1 year old to 3 years old Nicole developed some very unusual fears while at the same time disregarded many fears that most children have. For example; she had no fear of water which meant we had to put water wings or a floatation device on her in the car before heading to the beach or if she was going to be around a swimming pool because she loved the water and would start running toward it as soon as she got out of the car and would not stop until she was over her head in the water. She had no fear of getting hit by a car and would run out onto the road. She had no fear of heights or of falling and would climb very high, onto counters or the top shelf of her closet and then jump off. It was VERY difficult to ensure her safety as she just didn't seem to get it when we expressed our fear for her.

At the same time, she was terrified of the vacum cleaner and had to know where it was at night when she went to bed. If it was not shut away in a closet she was unable to sleep. She was petrified of anything that flew. Flies, mosquitos, birds, bees, butterflies all made her scream in terror. And I don't mean just crying. She literally shook with fear if anything flew near her or overhead. This made outings in the summer almost impossible. She also became unnaturally attached to me. She was uncomfortable if I was not in the same room as her and would follow me from room to room. She demanded my attention every waking minute and resented anyone or anything that took that attention away from her. She began to hate her father. If he showed me any affection she would hit him and scream and tell him NO. If I spent time with my other daughter she would throw a tantrum or would purposefully act out or get into things so she knew I would have to pay attention to her. When my son was born the first thing she did was hit him. She told me to get rid of him. I could not leave her alone with him because she would physically harm him. When he was 3 years old she tried to strangle him. This resulted in a trip to Child Protection because he was left with bruises on his neck and his teacher said she had to report it.

Nicole had become very aggressive and her rages became more and more frequent. It was increasingly difficult to take her out in public because I just never knew when she would explode into violence. I always got the "looks" from other women and would hear them whisper "If I had that child for a week I would straighten her out". One time I looked at the woman and said.."Please do!" No one understood that I had tried every normal parenting technique available to no avail. I was always covered in bruises because she would beat me up. I was terrified that I would hurt my child in self defense. I know that sounds stupid but it was true. She was 3 years old and small for her age but she was incredibly strong and would pinch and kick. People kept telling me not to pay attention to her when she was showing negative behaviours..just ignore her and she will stop. NOT! She was smart enough to know that was the tactic so she would become physical if I ignored her knowing I could not ignore being assaulted. I spent hours at a time locked in my bathroom crying while "ignoring her" as she kicked the door, screamed, spit and anything else she could think of to try to get me to come out.

I felt so alone during this time. I had no control of my life and no control over my child. I felt like a failure as a mother because everyone else was blaming her behaviour on my poor parenting skills. I could not get them to listen and understand.

Don't get me wrong. It was not all bad. During this time there were also areas where Nicole totally amazed me and all around her. She appeared to be of above average intelligence. She had an incredible sense of humor and loved slapstick comedy. Her bubbling laughter was infectious.

There were two areas in particular where Nicole excelled. Science and music. She was like a sponge trying to soak up as much information as possible. When she was about 2 1/2 she came to me one day and said, "Can I look at that book with the twisted things in it?" I was baffled as to what book she meant so I asked her to show me. She took me by the hand and went down to the basement to a box of old text books I had stored away. Inside the box was a medical encyclopedia. It turns out the "twisted things" she was talking about was intestines. So she carted out this book that was almost bigger than she was with a huge smile on her face. Her favorite activity from then on was to sit me down beside her and flip through that book page by page asking "What's this?...What's that?" Within a few months, at 2 years old, she was able to look at a picture and tell you.."that's a knee joint..and it's broken."

When I become pregnant for my third child, Nicole's favorite "story" book was a book I had picked up that showed the stages of fetal development. When my parents were visiting one day she hauled the book out and informed my father that this was a fetus and it was 8 weeks in gestation and that was the umbilical cord. My father's jaw dropped open. Most two year olds cannot teach you a science lesson. But Nicole not only could tell you what these things were, she could tell you their function too! Her vocabulary was formidible.

My father was also a musician. One time when we were camping Nicole was sitting by the wood pile playing with the logs. (this was kind of typical of her behaviours) I wasn't paying much attention to what she was doing with the wood until my father pointed it out to me. She had arranged the wood in varying sizes along two sticks and was using another stick to tap the logs and was listening intently. Then she would rearrange again and tap the log again. This seemed a bit peculiar until my dad pointed out that she was arranging her own xlophone of sorts and that she had them lined up so they were exactly an octave apart. He was amazed.

She had always sat raptly listening when my father played music. We bought her a little wooden flute when she was 3 years old. Nicole liked to have a radio on at night. One morning I was laying in bed and I began hearing this flute. It would be just random notes and then the next thing I would hear is her playing along with the song that was on the radio..then random for a bit and then the national anthum and then random again. When my Dad would come over and play his guitar she would run and get her flute and she would sit there for a moment listening to the song he was playing and the next thing we knew she was playing right along with him. It was unbelievable unless you saw it for yourself.

.....continued in Chapter 3