Just a Glimpse

I was able to go to Olivia’s class last Thursday for their Valentine’s party. We took heart-shaped brownies frosted pink and little bags with small gifts for her classmates. It’s easy to do that when there are only eight kids in a class.

During the party, the kids played musical chairs twice. Each time, the first kid out was the other girl in the class, Lillian. She didn’t sit because she wanted to control the music. She basically, she quit after each round.

Olivia was the second kid out each time. I watched her as the rounded the chairs with all those boys. She was having a great time and loved being included but each time the music ended, she stood there and watched the boys take all the chairs. She was never bothered by the fact that she was done playing but I think the processing that is necessary for a game like musical chairs is one of O’s biggest delays. She can’t process the fact that the music is off and that means she needs to find an empty chair fast enough to actually continue in the game.

And that’s okay. ‘Losing’ at musical chairs isn’t the end of the world.

She was excited to have me there, in her classroom, watching her play and run and be silly. She’d run up to me, tell me she was having so much fun and then make another lap around the room.

There were crafts that mostly involved stickers as well as a few that challenged the fine motor skills of the students. Those were great.

At one point, I was hovering over Olivia during one of the sticker crafts and one of the boys either did or said something that I missed. Olivia laughed. The boy glowered at her and said, “It wasn’t funny.”

She laughed again and told him, “Yes it was.”

Ha!! I love that she wasn’t intimidated by her classmate. I love that she talked to him even if it was to sort of make him mad. He didn’t get mad, he just went back to his own stickers. But she did talk to him, she replied appropriately to something he’d said. That is a big deal in Olivia’s social development.

For the past two years her teachers have said that she doesn’t really interact with her peers. And I’ve seen that this is mostly true. But she’s making progress in that direction. It may be slow-going but I’m never going to scoff at progress.

It was a lovely afternoon, a moment in time when I was able to see what happens during Olivia’s day when I’m not usually there. It’s moments like those that let me know that she really is going to be okay. Special? Yes, but also very much okay.