Sooner or Later

This post will be mostly pictures but I do have one story to share. Today John said something that made us (Dave and I) pretty sad. But I guess we would have to approach this subject sooner or later.

On our street we are blessed with some great neighbors. Within a few houses up and down and across the street, there are nine kids all around John's age with whom he frequently plays. It really is a great community. Two girls, ages 4 and 6 recently moved in across the street and John loves to play with them. One other girl on our block is 4 and she has cerebral palsy. She was born at 27 weeks and contracted meningitis which lead to her CP. However, she only has the CP in her legs. So the top portion of her body is able to move normally. But her legs are pretty weak and tight, and only recenlty has she learned how to walk, though she won't do it all the time. We have had great playdates with her in the past, and John and her seem to have gotten along well. I was proud and impressed that her physical limitations hadn't even phased him. We had prayed together often that she would learn to walk but that was the extent of our conversation.

Today John and I came back from another neighbor's house and when we turned the corner, this little girl came bounding out of her house with her mom. She was so excited to see John outside and she really wanted to play with him. But when John saw her he shut down immediately. He told me he did not want to play with her. I had no idea why, I just figured he was tired. So I told him to go tell her that he couldn't play with her today. She almost cried (she is emotional like that) and I think her mom was a little shocked as John always wanted to play. I apologized and went inside with John. When we were back inside I asked him why he didn't want to play. He said he wanted to play with the other girls (the 4 and 6 year old new girls). I asked him why he didn't want to play with the other girl (with the CP). He said, "I want to play with someone who can walk."

Oh that made us so sad! I am glad he was honest and really glad he didn't say anything to her, but it was so sad. We tried to talk to him about how God made this girl very special and she was still a lot of fun to play with. In the midst of this I remembered how in his preschool class, there is a girl in a wheelchair. So it seems like God has put several kids with physical limitations in John's path and we need to talk about these things more. I just ordered a children's book about CP and hopefully we can have some more conversations about this. I am really hoping we can have this girl over for a playdate this week and have some good, encouraging time with her.


Here are some other recent pictures:

 Water fight outside

 Albuquerque Dukes hats from Grandma! Old School!

We hope your October is going well. Cheers!