"I Want Baby"

Sam has been really showing more desire to interact with his peers!

This is definitely a praise, since as you know, children affected by autism can tend to be 'loners'. In the most extreme and troubling of cases, some kids have been known to avoid contact altogether, even from those that love them most.

We are very blessed to know firsthand that Sam is a very sweet, affectionate boy who wants to interact with others. Even with his little sister.

Last week at school, at one point Sam's class and Grace's class were both outside but still in separate groups. As Melissa and her co-teacher gathered up the kids to march them back inside for more class time, Sam hung back and wanted something. When Melissa asked him what it was, he said,

"I want baby".

At first Melissa wasn't sure what he was talking about. But she quickly realized, as he looked over towards his little sister's class, that he was talking about Grace! Amongst the many cutesy and silly nicknames that we pelt our kids with, I guess we didn't realize that we still call Grace 'baby'. When she told me that, I remembered that a few months ago, when we had to leave Wed. night church in separate cars, Sam was not happy about that and he said "I want mama...I want baby." He also said it again later that week when they went out for recess.

Saturday morning, after taking Sam and Grace to his horse riding therapy, I took them to the park. It was beautiful and sunny out. Sam had previously not liked the twisty tube slides all that much. There is one at that park that he would grudgingly go down with some extensive prompting. There were several kids happily and noisily going down it, including Grace. He seemed to stand there and watch her go down, and then he proceeded to go down it! After he got to the bottom, he stood beside it and peeked up through the opening, to see who else was coming down next. And then he climbed back up and slid down it several more times!

I think the reason he decided to give the ol' slide a fresh try was that he saw how the other kids were having so much fun, including his sister. And he had fun too!

We thank God that he awakens more and more each day to those around him, and that he desires interaction with his peers. We are also very glad that God has blessed him with a sweet sister who helps keep him out of his 'zone'. Not to say that they don't have their territorial spats now and then (they are a brother and sister, after all...) and Grace has a few memories of being chomped on to prove that. But she keeps on wanting to play with him. She serves as a great example to us, because she loves him in spite of his inabilities to express himself. And when she gets burned by it, she just keeps coming back.