We spent part of the weekend in Alexandria, visiting Eli, Amy, and Andrew. A and A wanted to attend an event at the National Harbor and asked us if we would stay with Elijah Boo while they did so.
What a nice baby Eli is! Very good natured, mostly happy, energetic, and flirtatious. And a good eater. We had a wonderful time being grandparents, and afterwards A and A took us all out to a Mexican place for an excellent dinner. The table adjacent to us was laid out for about 20+ guests and we knew from the photos posted everywhere that it was a graduation party for someone named Alex. And, apparently, it was to be a surprise. It was a huge surprise, because as soon as Alex walked in (we all recognized her from the photos), everyone at our end of the restaurant cheered and applauded! Such fun . . .
Early this morning before anyone else was awake, I finished reading The Boy in the Moon. I found this to be an important book. Ian Brown is a writer who has a disabled son, as opposed to a parent of a disabled child who wrote a book. He writes not just of his family's experience, but travels to meet and interview other parents of children with the same or similar syndromes. He also visits a network of care facilities designed for people whose intellectual capacity is seriously compromised.
In one place he says, "I don't want to minimize the difficulty of raising a handicapped child. . . . But it's just a mistake to think of them as lesser than. There's no lesser than. There's just different from. It isn't just great minds that matter. It's great spirits too." I was well aware of the irony that I was reading this during a visit to my perfect and "normal" grandson.
This book is an excellent read. One of my commenters wrote me that she was afraid it would be too difficult a read for her inasmuch as her own grandchild had just received a diagnosis of difference. My thought is that this book would let her know that she is not alone.
One pair of our children has close friends who have a young daughter who is developmentally delayed. I'm recommending this book to my kids -- it will help them understand their friends a little better and help them to be better friends to them.
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