Think Twice When Someone Stares At You

Yesterday my son had his third experience as the "special needs model" for the camp pool instruction course. Each year camp hires advocates for the special needs kids and since my babes has a love affair with the swim director, she has him come and demonstrate for the incoming counselors. They get a general idea of what it will be like to work with the special needs kids in the pool and my little man gets to have a blast. Everybody wins.

As we were leaving the pool, a lady walked out the door with us.  As we walked down the hall together, my son who took  years to make eye contact and notice people around him, looked at the lady and sort of stared at her face for several seconds. I of course was so excited by his observation but just as I was smiling to  myself, the lady said "I must be really funny looking." I completely get her joke and the fact that all she saw was some kid staring at her oddly but still I was a little surprised. I think when you see your child progress and go from barely noticing people to totally being interested, you only see the glory in the new development not the social awkwardness that the action causes. I was a little shocked that her response was negative even though she was trying to be light and playful. I told her that of course he wasn't thinking that about her and that we celebrate when he looks at people and that he is still learning the importance of eye contact and connecting with people. I think right after her comment she realized that she may have been a little rash and just said "you're right." Still, we don't want to put people off as we progress but we are grateful for open-mindedness and leniency.

So, Should you be walking down the street and a child starts to stare into your face or ask you to repeat after him when he says "do do do" please consider obliging him and not taking any strangeness personally. These little quirks that we happen to adore, are evidence of amazing progress that comes from hours, days, weeks and years of hard work.
If everyone acted the same as each other, we would surely be bored and like I often say "we haven't been able to cure Cancer yet so we need these alternate thinkers to get the job done."

Just about everyone we meet is immediately drawn to our cute boy but still we just want to set a little reminder that he is working hard everyday to blaze his trail.

My babes taking charge and ordering everyone to join him in ring around the rosie.