Where’s Marlie? ADHD Comes With Us Around the World

It is a world of reminding. Those who live with a child with ADHD understand the repetition that goes into daily life. Put on your socks. Brush your teeth. The mundane cannot be remembered, and needs to be told and spelled out daily. Those things that are novel and new capture their attention, and a trip like ours around the world offers much of that. Our Marlie can remember how to use the lock a landlord explained to us, but not where she packed the power cord for her iPod. She’ll never lose her subway ticket, but will chase after pigeons in the park and not notice that we are leaving.

Fifteen months worth of medication did not come with us. Fortunately, her prescription is the type where she can miss days or weeks, and it still helps her the same when she takes it. We save these for big “school days,” where the experience itself will not keep her attention.

We laugh that she lives up to her family nickname: Monkey. Exercise is critical, because her body demands movement, staying still for too long creates a pent up pressure that will erupt if not given an outlet. Fortunately, our daily explorations usually involve a good deal of walking as well as stops in places where running, twirling, jumping, and climbing are acceptable. Of course, this also means we have to chase after her at each of these to let her know we are moving on.

She is brilliant, a young encyclopedia, with a constant stream of words coming from her that pause only when she is sleeping or reading her Guardians of Ga’Hoole books on kindle. Finding quiet for work and school is a challenge in a world where we are constantly together.

She is also self sufficient and good in a crisis. She took a wrong turn in Paris when she ran to the public restroom at the end of the block on her own. We were frantically looking for her, but she backtracked and found her way back alone. She navigates crowds and public transportation well. She can’t keep her clean and dirty clothes straight and her iPod is dead for weeks at a time because she cannot remember to charge it.

So, what can we do but laugh when she can’t find any socks or we walk across the square to get her from the wall of the fountain or the side of the statue?