Wednesday, March 11, 2015

He's Always Happy, Isn't He?

Sometimes people who meet Kepler make comments along the lines of "He's always happy, isn't he?"

Well, he's happy a lot of the time, but not always. Case in point:

On the way home from dance class yesterday, he asked me to take him to Wendy's to get french fries. I said no. I told him the next food he could have was cheerios with milk, and the next drink was going to be water. Dance class is about 12 miles from home. During that drive, he asked for fries at least 20 times, and told me he didn't want Cheerios another 30 times.

Each time he asked, he heard the same thing: "Next food is Cheerios, next drink is water." Poor thing wore himself out fighting against these particular goads. By the time he had fallen asleep in the car, then refused to get out, then littered the basement with his coat and shoes, and finally agreed to cereal, there were only a few minutes until his Fine Arts Night at his school.

Ready to sing!

Sees mom and sister in the audience!

Enjoying his classmates

Happy to be here

He loved being in the show, and showing his sister and me around his school. Not to mention, the huge number of people who greeted him, clearly delighted to see him. One of the fourth grade teachers last night called dibs on him for fourth grade (two years from now). He brings a lot of joy to a lot of people.

Kepler's not always happy, but then, neither is anyone else. But we could probably all take a page from his book about rebounding from stuff that upsets us, and let it go completely when we finally accept what is.




2 comments:

NewEnglanderatHeart said...

I always enjoy your writing! Kepler is adorable in those pictures. In this writing piece, I especially love how you pointed out that Kepler experiences all feelings! He is multi-dimensional- just like all of us. I assume the sentiment behind the question "He's always happy, isn't he?" is kind, but I think its important that we, as parents, make sure people know there are more to our kiddos than a single-dimension. As always, loved reading your thoughts!

Unknown said...

Thank you, Candice. I always accept the question as having a good intent behind it as well, but people with Ds definitely experience a range of emotions!