Evening at the park

OK my darlings, it's been a few days and I feel like writing, but I'm not sure I have whole lot to say today. I would like to report that I had a lovely evening with my oldest daughter at the park. While she is my oldest daughter, she is the middle child and with her older brother being the attention getter that he is and my youngest daughter being four, Savannah very often finds herself waiting for her own turn. So tonight we went to a local park together,just the two of us, we strolled and took in historic sights then my daughter played on the playground as I watched on. While we were there another little girl went charging over to Savannah and was very interested in what she was doing, they started jabbering away (Savannah is very much like me in that she is a social butterfly-she makes a new friend wherever she goes). Savannah and the other girl, whose name I learned was Mackenzie, jumped around and played, talked and looked at the clouds while I and Mackenzie's mother watched on.

Just before we left Mackenzie came over and began to talk to me. I would guess by her size that she was about 7 or 8, she had bright blue eye's and was full of interest in me and Savannah, when she spoke to me I realized there was something familiar about the way she spoke and the things she said were interesting, though not what I am used to hearing from most kids. I realized that she had autism -not that a person's label is important, and Mackenzie was far more than any label- but I recognized why her mother watched so closely and why every now then she had gone closer to offer Mackenzie prompts. Savannah, my lovely daughter never batted an eyelash, she played with Mackenzie and even followed her somewhat bossy commands without complaining, asking to leave or joining other children instead. When we left the park she never said a thing about it, just that Mackenzie was nice. Now I know that Savannah "knows," but she didn't need to talk about it, or hide with the other kids, she just went about her business and made a new friend and that was that. Maybe she's better at accepting others than I, she never said a word, but I've just come home and blogged about a little girl because she has autism. I'm proud that my daughter is who she is and that she loves everyone without thought or concern for her own "reputation," I hope I and other's can grow to be more like her. What a cool kid I have!