My son, the actor

Josh and I went on a field trip with the first graders to the TreeHouse Museum. I didn't realize until the day before that by signing the permission slip, I was agreeing to come along. You see, if you have a first grader, they just ASK you if you want to. If you have one of the "inclusion kids" than if you want your kid to go you must go as well. Luckily, I don't go to school on Friday and I am only really busy with homework this week, not a slobbering wreck because of homework like the last two weeks. So I went and boy was I glad that I did.

I let Josh take the bus and I met him there later. He was so happy to see me. When we were called to the bus, he was so excited that I was going too. He held my hand the whole way down the hall to the bus. On the bus, it was as if he didn't even see the other kids. He just pulled me to a seat and made me sit with him. He was ecstatic to have me ride with him. He laughed, hugged me, kissed me, shouted "YEAH!" while punching the air. The bus driver got into the spirit and turned on the Black Eyed Peas song blaring, "Tonight's gonna be a good night!" We danced in our seats and sang. There was not a trace of embarrassment, not a speck of worry about what peers thought.

When we got to the TreeHouse Museum, everyone got split up into 3 groups to do 3 activities. The first activity was a shield making craft. Everyone sat down really quickly leaving the three inclusion kids to sit at their own table. No way! I squeezed Josh onto a table with other kids (this is inclusion people! Not exclude the inclusion kids time).

Next they put on a play, The Princess and The Pea. Josh volunteered to be an actor. When they asked who wanted to be king out of all the actors Josh was the only one to raise his hand. If you have never been to one of these plays, here is the general gist. The narrator (adult) tells the story including what the actors (kids) say and the kids are expected to repeat the narrator when he says their lines. Now here I am in a predicament. Do I risk embarrassing Josh and tell the narrator? Then the focus becomes what he CAN'T do. Hmm...Nope! I don't think I'll tell him. Let's just see how this plays out.

When it gets to Josh's first line, the narrator tells him to repeat it. Silence. "Come on, it's not that hard". Silence, but Josh is smiling. "It will serve you better in the future if you learn to speak up now" Silence (except for maybe my own snickering). The kids have all become quiet and are shifting uncomfortably looking at each other. They know, I know, Josh knows, but this narrator has no clue. Each time he gets to one of Josh's lines he goes through the song and dance, telling him he needs to say it and it isn't hard, he can do it, etc. All of which I find highly amusing because the man couldn't be more wrong. Josh never falters. His smile remains firmly in place. He does all the actions he is told, he shows plenty of kingly emotions but all completely silent.

About halfway through the narrator gives him another line and this time, for whatever reason, Josh is comfortable enough to say something. "A-loah-blough-nhew-blana!"

Now silence from the other end as the narrator realizes his blunder. He blinks once, twice, at my son. Then, with a flourish he turns to the audience and says, "And the townspeople helped the King say,__________". And we did. No prompting needed for the rest of the play, us townspeople took care of our King and said his lines. The King smiled and acted his little heart out. It worked well. I was so proud.

The next station had a play as well. Josh volunteered as was chosen as "The evil knight". This part suited him, not that he is evil, but that he has the bad guy scowl and fold arms down perfectly. This narrator figured it out much faster. Josh again acted the part. The scowl, the tapping chin thinking face, the you beat me sulk. Beautiful. Bravo! I was overflowing with pride.

I saw a mom that I knew while I was there. She saw my son and asked me if he has a diagnosis. I told her and she gasped. I just smiled and said, "I am the luckiest mom here. My son is not bound by the normal peer worries of these other kids. He is fearless to get up in front of this crowd and act in a play, even when he knows full well he can't speak. He has held my hand in the hall, the bus, and inbetween every station. He has hugged and kissed me and wanted me to sit next to him and share every moment. He isn't embarrassed to be seen with me or by what I do (not even when we were dancing and singing on the bus). I get this childhood innocence longer than anyone else here. Why should you be sorry?"

On the way home he laid his head in my lap. I was incredibly happy that I have my son the way he is. Sometimes it is hard and honestly I have had a hard time with everything that we have lost (past, present, and future), but usually I feel like all the rest of you are missing out. What? You have a normal child? GASP! Shake head. I am so sorry.

My melodramatic, sweet, tenderhearted boy

My son is so sweet. I told him I was sick with a cold and he made a sad crying face then clutched his hands together and brought them to his forehead like a prayer and began babbling. When he was done, "Are you praying for me?". He nods, lets out a fake cry and does it again. Thanks honey.

Later this weekend, he wanted to watch The Fox and the Hound. I was doing my homework and he was eating lunch at the table. It was at the part when the old woman has to take Tod to the forest and let him go. The song is about letting go and keeping the person in your heart. Suddenly I hear sobbing. I look up and see Josh not just sobbing but he keeps putting his face in one hand and pounding his fist on the table with the other. Then wiping the tears from his face, sniffing loudly and then doing it again.

So he won't be a doctor...

Josh is terrified to have his teeth pulled. He won't let us do it. He will let his teeth hang on by a thread while they literally spin 360 degrees in his head. It drives me and my husband crazy. It is like an itch you can feel but someone else tells you you can't scratch. This last weekend he had a tooth that not only was crazy loose but also looked super painful. His gums above it were a reddish purple and it just looked...ow-y. So I literally held him down and pulled it out. He seemed shocked at how easily it came out. He was mildly upset at the attack but as i got out an envelope for it he seemed to be forgiving me. I thought, "What a nice time to teach him a little about his body!" So I pulled the tooth back out and showed him where the root was and where the chompy end was and how cool it was in general. I had just put it up to my own gums to show him how it was situated in his mouth when he promptly fainted. At first I thought he was joking. His eyes went weird and kinda rolled around, he fell backwards into Sharon's arms (luckily she was sitting behind him)and she slowly lowered him to the ground. I was not absolutely sure he fainted until he hit the ground and looked startled, scared, and completely confused why he was on the floor. As his terrified crying mixed with my laughter, I hoped one day to hear this experience from his point of view.

Sledding

Josh and I went sledding, real sledding, for the first time together. In the past years, Josh has had a hard time walking through the snow. Inclines are hard enough before you add slippery, uneven, thick snow to the mix. We used the sled in our yard to go down our small hills. The few times I tried larger hills we were both tuckered out just getting to the place and going down the hill was traumatic (last time we went the snow was too powdery and next thing we knew the sled had taken us UNDER the snow not on top). But this last weekend Sherri and Brooklyn invited us and so we went.

The hills were at least 6 times higher than any hill we had ever tried and more than 10 times higher than the ones in our yard. When we got to the top Josh actually laughed like I was joking when I said we were going down. When he realized I was not, he looked at me like I was crazy and shook his head no. So we watched Brooklyn go. He laughed and clapped and "woo-hoo"ed but would he go down? No.

So after we watched Brooklyn a couple of times I insisted that he go with me down the hill. He was upset and made it quite clear he didn't want to but we did anyway. He did not enjoy it. He wasn't crying though so I took that as a good sign. I agreed that we could go down some of the smaller hills (they were only about 1/3 of the height or less). We did this for quite some time and Josh actually began wanting to go down by himself. What a work out. He couldn't even make it up the small hill, especially with the sled so each time I had to walk down and then help him keep his balance as he got up the hill.

Next thing I know, instead of walking up the small hill, he steered us toward the big hill. I kept asking him if he wanted to go down it but even as we began trudging our way up he refused to commit to that. The big hill, oh the big hill. It would have been hard anyway but halfway up he would completely lose his footing and try to take us both down the hill. So here I am with the sled in one hand and my son in the other, losing my own footing and slipping as I try to heave his little flailing, laughing body up the 60 degree incline. It was almost more of a heave child, take a step, heave child, take a step move. When we got to the top he tried to tell me that the point of this was not to actually go down on the sled but to have a better vantage point to watch other people. "No way. I did not drag your little butt up the hill for nothing." I am actually pretty sure those were my exact words.

So I let him pick where we would go down and despite the whining and shaking of his head I loaded him on. I don't know how, but he managed to pick the part of the hill that didn't have any sort of a flat top so I have my boots digging in as well as I can and we were still slowly sliding down as I try to get him situated in front of me. I only had to pick up one foot and the traction of my other boot had was worthless, we were flying down the hill. I have to admit, when we were halfway down I was having visions of little broken bodies myself and probably looked as terrified as he did. When we came to a stop I didn't know if he was laughing or crying until I turned him around to face me. Luckily, he seemed to be doing terrified laughing so we were okay.

He did go down a handful of times from the big hill, a couple times even all by himself! We did go back to doing the little hills because he discovered he could do those almost totally on his own which was a relief to me because I was really tired of lugging him up the hills. Josh screamed and "woo-hoo"ed his approval, jumping up and down and throwing rock hands into the air for anyone who went down the hill every time they went. I love his unabashed enthusiasm for life. It was a great day.