The irrational fears of a damaged child

For a while now Sue and I have been skirting around the issue that there may actually be something wrong with Emily. How could there be, though? She's so perfect - cute and smiley, affectionate and loving. She's everything you could ask for.

Of course her language skills are practically non-existent outside of nursery rhymes, but that's ok... isn't it?

Sue's been doing some home diagnostics - always a dangerous undertaking - and the results are not all positive. She's been checking to see if Em's autistic or has assburgers among the many ailments.

Like any home diagnoses, you see a couple of headline symptoms and grab onto that problem like a life jacket in the ocean, ignoring the fact that 7 of the 10 symptoms aren't there.

I have to believe the best about our child's mental health and that her language delays are just that - delays. The speech pathologist has given us hope that the rest of her development cascades from developing her language.

There's going to be some real soul searching if there's actually something wrong with Emily. I can't love her any less, but even when you're 100%, the world's a hard enough place to live in and deal with. If you've got an affliction it's just a whole lot worse.