some things just bug me!

Yesterday Tim and M were supposed to go to a father/daughter BBQ and Tim had to be prepared with a story to tell about M. So we looked through past blog posts to find something. It was so fun to do - some things I had recorded that I completely forgot about and others were fun memories that had pictures associated with them! It reminded me that I need to be a little more consistent with the whole blogging thing since I don't take a lot of time to hand write in a journal!

Anyway... on to today! M has a hard time with friends. Being Autistic brings a special set of issues - especially when it comes to friends and especially at this age. Girls are MEAN. Plain and simple - they just are and who knew they could be so catty at 9 years old? M loves everyone. She has no problem with anyone - regardless of how mean they are to her. You could be just horrible to M and if you apologize, she will welcome you back with open arms - never to speak of the evil things you did EVER AGAIN. So - thanks to this little personality trait - she doesn't get why people don't welcome her with the same compassion and love and understanding.

There are many girls in our neighborhood and M would love to play with every one of them - but none of them ever want to play with her. This makes summers really hard because she sits here all day, upset, because she feels like she has no friends.

There is one little girl imparticular that M likes to play with (we'll call her Missy for now). She is always asking to play with Missy but Missy NEVER - and I mean NEVER wants to play with M. (and it's not like she isn't playing with kids - her house ALWAYS has kids over). She is a rude, ornery child. She will smile and be polite - when her mom is around - and will even say "hey M, we should play" - well, that gets M really excited because she always wants to play with Missy - but then when M calls to set up a time, guess who all of a sudden is grounded or doesn't have time or whatever the excuse is. Of course this leads to tears and I get to clean up Missy's mess - AGAIN - and frankly I'm sick of it.

You wanna know why little girls act the way they do - look at their moms. I'm not saying that you should force your child to play with someone they don't want to - but as a mom - if your child tells someone "yeah, let's play" then you need to have them follow through with their promise otherwise you are teaching them to be dishonest and making them into someone that can't be trusted. If she doesn't want to play - just say so - STOP TELLING MY DAUGHTER THAT SHE DOES because YOU AREN'T HERE TO WIPE THE TEARS day after day.

Missy isn't the only one that does this - I've seen how the other girls in the neighborhood treat M, I've seen their mom's look at her like she's a freak - it's just AUTISM people - she isn't contagious and FRANKLY she is more loving and caring then your daughters will ever be - and I'd take that ANY DAY OF THE WEEK. Maybe you should focus on teaching your girls that everyone needs friends and being popular isn't always the answer.

ok - I'm done venting now....

On a lighter note - N's baseball team made it to the semi-finals and they play tonight. If they win then they will play in the championship game directly after the semi-final game... wish us luck!