Baby Power

Rerun, Thumper and I met up for lunch at the mall yesterday with my friend Lisa (one of my best friends from high school) and her little guy, the Bean, who is 9 months old.  (She blogs about his exploits here.)  This was my last chance to get together with only two kids to look out for, since today is Ane and Tad’s last day of school. We had lunch at Panera Bread at the mall, where the moms had salads and the boys who eat solids had Asiago cheese bagels.  The Bean and Rerun shared a chocolate chip cookie, which the Bean enthusiastically enjoyed.

After lunch, we did a little shopping and stopped in at Victoria’s Secret to scope out the sales.  I was testing out different scents in the “beauty” department there when a girl, about 11 or 12, got really close to me.  Thinking that she was trying to get to something on the shelf, I backed up a little.  She followed me.  I backed up again, thinking I was still blocking her.  She followed me again, and then I looked where she was looking.  She was staring straight at Thumper, who was half asleep, attached to me with the Moby.  At this point, her mom came and got her, and gave me an apologetic smile.  About 5 minutes later, the girl was back, staring at a now very asleep Thumper with a huge smile on her face.  Her mom came rushing back over and said, “I’m sorry, she’s autistic.”

I smiled and pointed at Thumper. “So is his older brother.”

The mom’s face went from anxiety to sheer relief.  We talked for a little bit, and I could tell that this girl was a more severe, nonverbal ASD kid.  The mom asked me about Tad, and if he was mainstreamed at school.  They weren’t in the same school district that we are, so I didn’t know all their class designations, but my guess is that this girl is probably in a CLC, being nonverbal.  She kept looking at Thumper, clearly enthralled with him.  I said to her, “Would you like to touch the baby?”  I took her hand and she got all shy (after being so assertive about wanting to see him up close, which was so cute) and she let me run her pointer finger over Thumper’s fuzzy head.  She giggled with delight.  We said our good byes.

I went over to Lisa and told her what had just happened.  She said, “Out of all the people she could have approached, she picked you.”

I know that the girl may not remember Thumper, but I will remember her.  I know her mother will remember me, and the sweet little baby who made her daughter giggle.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 19th, 2013 at 1:00 am and is filed under Autism Adventures, Children, Shopping Stories.
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