Lions, Tigers, and Bears, Oh My

We had a great day at the zoo today with our autism support group. We go by the name SAINTS, which is an acronym for "Support for Autism In North Texas".

We have a lot of great people in our group. We offer each other a lot of advice and moral support. Thankfully we don't delve into the political stuff too much. There are other forums for that, and they tend to be a mess. We all have enough stress in our lives, its nice not to get bogged down in the politics.

Our group communicates almost exclusively via email, but we have had some get togethers so that we can meet face to face on occassion, both with and without kids. I think we parents all appreciate when we've been able to sit down, just as adults, and visit.

But today was a family day...

We had picture perfect weather at 10:00am when the gates opened up at the Fort Worth Zoo.

Mason enjoyed the zoo more today than he ever has in the past. Now that he's learning to point, he was more easily able to engage us when an animal piqued his interest. And watching him walk hand in hand with his sister was priceless.

She is very protective of him, and guards him like a crazed rabid pitbull.

Throughout our 4 hour expedition at the zoo, if Mason was familiar with an animal, like an elephant, he'd imitate their sound. It was funny to watch when he saw an animal that makes no noise, like the giraffe, and we could see his wheels spinning. He eventually ad libbed.

Since the Fort Worth Zoo is large, we didn't tour the zoo as a group. We'd see each other as we meandered down the paths and chat for a few minutes before our kids pulled us each away to the next exhibit.

But my family and I had the opportunity to sit and lunch with some friends of ours, Stacy and Jeff Crowe and their 2 children. Their son Jackson, just a bit younger than Mason was also diagnosed with autism.

Watching both Jackson and Mason side by side (unintentionally and NOT interacting w/one another) I noted their similarities, and their vast differences.

Observing them over the course of lunch, made me think of how it's been mentioned many times that you can place 1000 children affected by autism in a room, and note all their similarities. But at the same time you'd see how enormously different they are from one another.

Seeing Jackson and Mason together really made this hit home.

Both the same.

Both so different.