Levi

Have you ever sat back and watched your kids and wondered about their interactions with one another? The other day after my son got out of school we walked to adjoining park along with a few other children to enjoy an hour of the nice warm early spring weather before heading home. The sound of his giggles made me laugh as he ran ahead to the first still kinda empty playground. I sat on one of the shaded benches with his belongings and just watched as he played by himself.

I thought back to all the other times that i have gone to playgrounds with him and his older sister. Remembering him always doing solo play unless I or his sister joined him. That hasn't changed much except he now does try sometimes to engage with other children .......sometimes. This particular day, my Levi seemed as though he really wanted to make an effort to play with the other children that drifted between the two playground areas in the park.

Unfortunately, he seemed to realized that he is a little different than the other children that he sees because he explained to me that he is a little shy and doesn't really comfortable at times with them. To clarify, my youngest is on the autism spectrum and sometimes is shy when he is around kiddos that he might not be familiar with. So as any good parent does I asked him why and how could we make it to where he feels more comfortable. His response was to laugh and then ask me to help him on the swing...... which i did until he ran over to the other playground.

I sat and swung lazily watching him with the other children as they played on the slides and then the net. My smile then slowly faded a bit as some of the children seem to brush him off and run back in my direction before I realized that they were getting their belongings cause it was time for them to go. So I made my way closer to where he was still playing and talking with the remaining children listening to their conversation and snickering with hidden laughter from what I heard.

Slowly then quickly it seemed the park emptied as school let out fully and parents hustled their children away to homes nearby. Levi continued to play solo for another few minutes or so then looked up and realized that he was the only remaining kid in the park. With a sigh, he walked over to me to get his backpack and then asked if we could get him a doughnut as we started walking down the street.

While we walked, we talked about how his day went and other mundane things before he made me double over with laughter by asking if he could invite his ( crush) girlfriend. After a while, he ran ahead of me before getting tired and stopping to wait for me. Finally reaching the store ( 15 minutes later) he picked out a donut for himself and then smiled at me saying I love you mommy.

As we then hurried to catch the bus as it was pulling up, he laughed with joy then ran to hug his big sister seeing her sitting on the bus. My levi then tried to flirt with one of the other high school girls telling her she was pretty and asking if she had a boyfriend (me and big sister were like ugh and the girl kinda laughed and said he was cute before going back to her phone).

After getting home and eating dinner, eta..... as he was getting ready for bed, Levi said he was happy with who he was and that he loved everybody but he didn't want to go to bed cause there was no school ( it was tuesday)..... i laughed hugged him and said night, he fell asleep hugging me.