New Feature: RGKS

As I have tried many times before, I'm going to try to start posting here more, and so, in a burst of optimism, I'm going to start what I hope will be the first of some but not too many Random Gratuitous Kid Stories. The idea is that if I think "oh, I should post on my blog" and can't think of anything to write about, I can pull one of these gems out of my head and churn it out quickly. We'll see how that works.

Also, from here on out, I'm dropping the cutesy pseudonyms for the people I write about. It's just getting old.

Anyway, here's an old favorite about a couple of notes Rachel wrote when she was 7 and 8 years old. As I mention in this space from time to time, life with high functioning autism can be all kinds of awesome, and these notes illustrate that point.

Note #1: Toward the end of the school year when Rachel was in first grade, the full-inclusion (ie special ed) teacher at her school was very pregnant and would be having her baby over the summer. Rachel had never been able to wrap her mind around the idea that you could have a baby in there and not know if it was a girl or a boy. (I think this kind of uncertainty still puzzles, her, actually. Every Tuesday when we are watching "American Idol," she asks me who's going to get eliminated, and I have explain once again that it's not decided until after the show). So on the last day of school, when they made cards for the pregnant teacher, Rachel wrote one that said:

Dear Katie,
Have a happy baby. It's a boy and his name is Tim.
From Rachel

(The baby turned out to be a girl.)

Note #2: We went to Hawaii the spring Rachel was in second grade. Her school aide, Mrs. Sharp, reminded Rachel several times that she wanted Rachel to send her a postcard. The last day we were there, I made her sit down and write the postcard, and this is what she wrote:

Dear Mrs. Sharp,
I'll be back Monday.
From Rachel

I made her write in "PS - I'm having fun" or something like that, but at least I knew Mrs. Sharp would get a kick out of it.