Meet Emerson!

Ah, Emerson. Where to start!

First off, he's named after Ralph Waldo Emerson and Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, so I guess we just always knew he was destined to be strange. Plus as the son of a gamer-geek and book-worm, he just had "odd" genes.

So no surprise to us when he's just a bit on the quirky side. Plus as a firstborn, it's not like we had a clue what kids were supposed to be like.

Oh look, Emerson's flapping again - isn't he cute!?

Ugh- another tantrum - when do they grow out of this!??

But it wasn't until he started going to a daycare center that we really saw how different he was compared to other kids. Still we thought "he's just himself, he's unique!"

Then the daycare owner called us in and let us know that not only was he "unique," but he was just not acting like the other kids at all, required a teacher for just him, and she really thought we should have him checked out She had us watch him on their video. What did we see that she thought was unusual?

• He didn't participate - he would wander off and play in the room away from the other kids, who were doing an activity together.

• He kept having tantrums - whenever something didn't go right, like he dropped his fork, or his toy fell over, or a kid walked by.

• His tantrums were violent - he kicked a teacher as she bent over him trying to get him down for nap, he would hit the teachers as they tried to calm him, he screamed, he flailed, he threw things.

• He wouldn't eat - we knew he had a limited diet, but even at daycare he wasn't eating. And they noticed a pattern - he wouldn't eat anything colored. All his foods that he did eat were beiges and he avoided any odd textures like pudding or jello.

Young parents with no clue - the daycare lady pointed us to Rainbows United - http://www.rainbowsunited.org - to have him screened. In the meantime, the daycare kicked him out.

And that started a new, huge, strung-out, stressed-out chapter in our lives...

To be continued!