My Daughter Loves Friends
My sweet girl loves friends - all shapes, ages, genders, sizes, and colors. There are many times that my daughter gives me a glimpse into how we all should live our lives, but none so powerful as when she makes "friends."
Granted, some might say that she isn't selective enough, but I say that we're all just way, way too picky. She can make friends with an 80 year old woman in line at the grocery store, or a tiny baby in a clothing store, or her dancing buddies at ballet class, or a ladybug, or the grocery bagger who's really way too cool to pay any attention but just can't help it, or a stray dog, or her babysitter, or the eight year olds on the playground who pretend to ignore her, etc, etc...
But yesterday my mother told me a story about her natural affinity for friendship that made me pause, and made me proud. My mother is a school nurse in a school district that serves literally hundreds of special needs children from pre-school through adolescence. She is also our primary caregiver, and often takes my daughter to her school in the afternoons, since my daughter thinks that it is amazing that Grandma has a park at her work (all I have is a copy machine).
Yesterday my mother took my sweetie to a classroom with some of her lowest functioning kids (they are operating developmentally at the level of one year olds or so even though their bodies look like those of much older school-age children). They were playing with musical instruments: maracas, tambourines, drums and the like. My daughter shook the maracas to the delight of one of the children. Every time she got "crazy" and shook the maraca the other little girl squealed with delight. My daughter loves nothing more in life than to make people laugh (a career as a professional clown perhaps?), so she kept taking it up another notch. Pretty soon she was a one-kid show - dancing and singing all while shaking that maraca. She didn't think these kids were strange, or too big, or scary - she was having so much fun with her friends.
Let's all try to make friends.
Granted, some might say that she isn't selective enough, but I say that we're all just way, way too picky. She can make friends with an 80 year old woman in line at the grocery store, or a tiny baby in a clothing store, or her dancing buddies at ballet class, or a ladybug, or the grocery bagger who's really way too cool to pay any attention but just can't help it, or a stray dog, or her babysitter, or the eight year olds on the playground who pretend to ignore her, etc, etc...
But yesterday my mother told me a story about her natural affinity for friendship that made me pause, and made me proud. My mother is a school nurse in a school district that serves literally hundreds of special needs children from pre-school through adolescence. She is also our primary caregiver, and often takes my daughter to her school in the afternoons, since my daughter thinks that it is amazing that Grandma has a park at her work (all I have is a copy machine).
Yesterday my mother took my sweetie to a classroom with some of her lowest functioning kids (they are operating developmentally at the level of one year olds or so even though their bodies look like those of much older school-age children). They were playing with musical instruments: maracas, tambourines, drums and the like. My daughter shook the maracas to the delight of one of the children. Every time she got "crazy" and shook the maraca the other little girl squealed with delight. My daughter loves nothing more in life than to make people laugh (a career as a professional clown perhaps?), so she kept taking it up another notch. Pretty soon she was a one-kid show - dancing and singing all while shaking that maraca. She didn't think these kids were strange, or too big, or scary - she was having so much fun with her friends.
Let's all try to make friends.
posted by Diane @ Wednesday, June 14, 2006
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