Awesome Kid!

Jack is just an awesome little guy. Today I cried over the most ordinary of events. Jack rolled a ball and talked with a guy at our church. Sounds pretty uneventful, right? Well, not if your kiddo does not talk much around other people, not if people don't usually understand him, not if he is still mostly at the stage of playing beside and not with others, and not if you've never seen him spend so much time playing with and talking to an adult that was not you or your husband. We attend a small house church and Jack was outside playing on the deck. Stephen stepped outside to play with Jack because Jack pulled him and asked him to "wok ah side (walk outside)" with him. I watched this as I tried to listen to our preacher. I heard Jack sit down and start bouncing and spinning Irish. "Ah well," I thought, "I guess that's the end of that interaction." Then I heard Stephen ask Jack to roll him the ball. Jack continued to spin and bounce Irish. Stephen remarkably persisted. As I heard Stephen continue to ask, I braced myself. Imagine my surprise as I heard Jack say, "Ready". Somewhere between my actually listening to and participating in our church discussion and having my thoughts, Stephen had gotten Jack to begin playing with him. I heard them go back and forth a couple of times. Jack was talking WITH Stephen and playing WITH him! I almost couldn't believe it. It was so awesome that I actually interrupted our church discussion to say, "I'm sorry to interrupt but, praise God, Jack is playing with Stephen." Because we are a small church, everyone knew how much this meant and joined me in my joy.
Of course, Jack's not a perfect kiddo. He did not want to leave church and fussed and griped about getting into the car. I had to be firm and put him in the car even as he fussed about it. I reminded him that we needed to go shopping--an activity that he enjoys very much recently. Jack's been doing this fussing about getting in the car alot lately so when we got to the store, I reminded him before he got out that we were going to go into the store, walk around a bit and do our shopping and then we would check out and get back in the car. I told him that after check-out, we would not be delaying but getting straight into the car. He enjoyed shopping and waited patiently in the check-out line. But when it came time to go to the car......he made his protest loudly and initially tried to drop to the ground as our helpful grocery bagger pushed our cart to the car. I picked him up and reminded him that we needed to go directly to the car and since he was not getting up I would have to help him get there. As we got closer to the car he asked to be put down so I did. He continued to fuss as we got into the car. He continually said, "Get out. Get out." as he cried and HELPED ME get him in his carseat. It was almost funny. There he was crying and fussing but doing exactly what I asked him to. I feel so blessed to have such a great kid. He obviously did not want to get in the car but there he was doing exactly as I asked. Was he happy about it? No. Did he lie and pretend to be happy about it? No. Did he communicate with me? Yes, yes he did. How awesome is that!