Nemo

I have an issue with the r word.

Why? Why should I care? Because when people use the r word as an insult I see the face of a little boy I worked with, and for the purposes of this blog I'll call him Nemo, in a tribute to his love of Dorrie and his amazing ability to make whale noises.

Nemo is 7 and has autism and ADHD. If I could pick one child in the world to be my own, I would pick nemo. He runs up the hill to our group every morning, arms outstretched, giant grin spread across his face. He plops into my lap, or if I'm standing he hurls his arms around my waist and tries to knock me over. He says "I LOVE MOLLY!" One hand always has a toy clutched in it, usually a Gordon train, or a whale. The first time I met him was two summers ago. I was squatting in a doorway, talking to one of our staff members and he clambered onto my lap and said "Bounce me like a kangaroo?" and I did. His perfect hair flew up and down with each bounce, and he cackled with glee.

He is a sensory driven child. He loves to be spun, tossed, bounced and anything else that gives him sensory input. At the pool we let him jump off the side into our arms. He takes a few steps back, runs forward and jumps, feet pedling as if he doesn't know he's left the ground already. His mouth is always wide open in a grin, prompting us to hold him aloft as we plunge underwater, trying to keep him from swallowing the entire pool.

He has perfected the fake cry. But if you've caught him, all you do is ask "Nemo, are you crying for real or for fake?"
" FOR FAKE!" he exclaims, and grins up at you, tears vanishing.

Once he pushed a child into the pool. As his punishment I made him sit out, beside me for 5 minutes. Before letting him go I asked "Nemo, are you going to push L again?"
"No.... YES!" he yelled.

Whoops... (To be continued)