You know when you go to those classes with your baby and they break out the toys and like at the pool it'll be those little colorful balls or rubber duckies or at music class you know it'll be the egg shakers or the sticks you can bang together or the tambourines

and the babies you know they get really excited and the moms are excited to play with the babies with all the toys.

You know what I'm talking about those fun moments? I dread those moments.

I dread them because I know there's going to be a time in the not too distant future when we have to give those toys back and when that happens my daughter is just going to lose her mind.

She's going to start screaming she's going to be crying real tears you know she's going to make a scene and if I'm lucky there's a teacher there who understands and lets her hang on to something through the rest of the class

and if I'm unlucky the teacher is going to tell her she needs to learn how to share.

The thing is that I have to say I totally totally get this from the baby point of view it's like you know you gave me this thing that I totally love that you know thank you very much I'm enjoying playing with this and now like five minutes later you want me to give it back to you you're taking it back.

I get it but today we're going to hear from somebody whose daughter used to freak out about something that just seemed completely incomprehensible even if you were trying to look at it from the baby's point of view.

This is the ninth episode of the longest shortest time podcast I'm Hillary Frank Joyce Slayton is somebody who wrote to me through the blog.

She wrote to me about something that happened with her daughter Violet a few years ago and her story got my attention immediately because it was about something a disorder actually I'd never heard of before and you'll find out what that is soon in our conversation.

But I just want to point out first Joyce is a close person.

I'd close and I'd sown for her and you know I'd scoured thrift the ward and you know and I'd be excited because we were going to go out and we were going to see people and I'd have this fancy vintage baby.

When Violet finally came along it turned out she had a problem with clothes a big problem. Joyce started noticing it with things like bathing suits when she would put Violet in a bathing suit Violet would just you know freak out.

And then it was things like sweaters and jackets. Joyce would be putting Violet's left arm in the left sleeve of a jacket and by the time she was working her right arm into the right sleeve Violet would have wriggled her way out of the left side already.

So Violet was just kind of never dressed well for cold days at the playground.

This all hit a peak when Violet was about two and a half years old.

One day I was trying to bring her to a library story hour and I wanted her to wear this one pretty red shirt that we'd just gotten for her that had little dogs embroidered across the front.

It was really cute and I pulled it over her head and put it on her and she started plucking at it. That's what she does when she's upset.

She plucks at things with her fingers and she sort of shakes and you know and so this day I was determined to bring her out.

She was going to wear that shirt because I liked it and I was the mother and I was in charge and I took her out.

I mean I had a hold of her and it was like she was being electrocuted like she was like convulsing at the end of my arm, you know hopping around hysterically and screaming.

And we couldn't go into the library because there was like a line of parents with shoulders waiting to go into the library and staring at us like what is wrong with you.

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