“We are a normal family, in the morning there is hot chocolate everywhere and cereal on the floor”

On the breakfast table of the Marseille house, a ray of sunshine licks a cup of hot chocolate. A mess of Chocapic, scrambled eggs and compote are lining up for the spoon of Marilou, 4 years old. She is eating alone, it is 8:05 a.m. Cédric, her dad, 37 years old, is stoking the fire in the stove. Pauline, his mother, 36 years old, prepares the meal box for Léon, his 15-month-old little brother, who is still sleeping after a restless night.

A classic family scene on a Friday morning in November. But in this house, everything is not ordinary. Marilou is “neuroatypical”, she is missing a piece of gene. “2q37 microdeletion”, this is the name of its difference, stated by a geneticist when she was only a few months old. As she begins to tell her story, Pauline Mangin warns: she didn’t sleep much last night, and the next day is more trying. than the others.

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