Banner day

I try not to come on here too often and brag about my kids. But today was an exceptionally good day, especially for Wilder, so I'm gonna give him some public kudos.

First off, we had our very first double-thumbs-up day at school. I do realize that pretty much every day should be that kind of day at school, but he's been struggling with the transition ... so much so that there have been multiple principal's office visits and a string of emails back and forth between his teacher, the principal and Jerry and I trying to figure out the best course of action.

Anyway, without going into too much detail about how this has transpired, let's just say it started off mildly amusing, then I got frantic and very stressed, then I realized all I could do was all I could do, and as long as I was doing that, it would all turn out OK eventually.

We're not there yet, but we made a great stride today. He had a fantastic day, so much so that his teacher seemed in mild shock about it. It's our first double-thumbs-up day, and it's a pretty big deal for all of us — especially after about eight weeks of fingers crossed and silent intonations of "oh please don't let him have done something awful today ..."

So yeah, that was great. But that wasn't the coolest thing Wilder did today ...

So, where we grocery shop, there is a relatively new bagger named Danny. Danny has Down's Syndrome and, I found out today, he also has quite a stutter. I really feel for this kid. On the other hand, Danny is hilarious. He picks up each and every food item you buy and studies it intently. Then he either puts it in the bag with no fanfare, scowls furiously and tut-tuts whatever it is you're forcing him to touch and then puts it in the bag, or — this is the best part — he tosses it aside and refuses to bag it. He never talks ... he just silently judges you.

It is a freakin' comedy routine. Unintentional, I know, but nonetheless it cracks me up. I try to get in his line just to see it.

So today, he started off the same way. He picked up my bread choice, studied it, wrinkled his nose a bit and put it in a bag.

Then Wilder decided he wanted to help Danny, so he started handing him our groceries. At first, the kid was flustered. It was messing up not only his rhythm, but it was screwing with his ability to judge my purchases. I tried to gently tell Wilder that Danny had his own way of doing things and he should let him do it himself. But Wilder would not be deterred, and Danny became rather charmed by this kid who was trying to help him. By the end of it all, Wilder was handing him almost everything he put in the bag, and Danny was trying to tell me his life story (it was honestly very hard to understand him with the stutter, so I regret I cannot report any of it here).

When we left, I told Wilder it was nice of him to help bag the groceries.

"That guy seemed like he might be having a hard time," Wilder said. "So I wanted to help him."

It made me proud. Wilder has never really seen people's differences as something to either make a remark about or be frightened of, and I love that about him. In fact, when Danny was telling me his life story, I couldn't really understand a word he said, and I was feeling pretty awkward and frankly was also looking forward to getting out of there.

But not Wilder — he was just shoving onions and breakfast cereals in his face.

Love that kid.

PS. Of course, it's not really true that Wilder never notices differences. As we were preparing to catch our plane the other day, he saw an airport employee wheel a woman onto another flight's boarding ramp. "She needs a ride because she'd old," he says. "And that makes her slow." Then he looked around and remarked: "Uh oh, there are a ton of old ladies getting on our flight. This is gonna take forever!" I looked sheepishly at the woman sitting across from us. "It's OK," she said with a smile. "I'm just glad he didn't look at me before he said that."