I had a poignant moment regarding my Younger Son in the park yesterday. Fortunately, it came after a sort of high-point moment, so the net effect wasn't too negative.

I took YS to PetSmart so he could look at the SPCA dogs and pet them if he dared. The SPCA ladies know him by name now, and they know that he is MR, so they encourage him to play with the animals. To my surprise, YS assertively petted (word?) one of the dogs, and he tried to pull the ears of a massive German Shepherd. YS adores dogs, so the realization that he could pet them without being hurt made him a little giddy.

I needed to keep YS out a little longer (DW has a stomach flu this weekend and she was napping), so I took hiim to a large public park. YS's current obsession is magic marker caps. Not the pens, just the caps. He dumped his caps at the bottom of a curvy slide, then climbed up the slide and came back down. He arranged his caps again, climbed again, then came back down. A boy approached me with a toy gun and asked about the caps. I conversed with the boy for a few minutes. He told me that he is 5 years old and that he was born in December. "Oh," I said, "his birthday is in November." Okay, this boy is one month younger than my YS. "Why does he cry like a baby? Is he some kind of baby?" asked the boy. I debated how to answer that. I didn't want to ruin a 5 year old's afternoon in the park by trying to explain that my son has severe brain disorders, so I just said, "oh, he's still a baby in a lot of ways." Fortunately, that answer satisfied the boy.

YS collected some of his caps and ran across the park to another slide, then came back, grabbed some more caps, and ran across the park again. I schlepped the remaining caps over for him. The other boy asked me if I would do him a favor and let him shoot me with his toy gun. Sure, why not. I did death throes and falls to the ground worthy of an Academy Award. I even pretended to bounce off of a tree after being shot multiple times. I saw the boy's mother and grandfather busting a gut on a park bench as I played the dramatically dying victim. For a moment, I felt what it would be like to have non-disabled, "typical" children. DW feels that frequently and deeply. She worked as a nanny for several years, and she has much younger siblings, so she knows what it's like to be around typically abled children. I really have no basis for comparison, so I guess I'm kind of lucky.