My Girl

This girl has my whole heart. If you are a parent, you know what I mean. If you are a parent of a child with special needs, you really know what I mean. I don’t know who I’d be without being her mother. I don’t know what I’d do without her.

She is pure joy personified. This summer has been such a wonderful reminder for me that I want to live more like she does. She is the happiest person I know. She doesn’t judge. She doesn’t hold grudges. She isn’t spiteful. She just loves.

We went out west for two weeks and then Florida for a week. She was so great. But, like all of us after we travel a lot, she was so very happy to be home. It’s her favorite place in the whole world. She hangs out in her room, with a sheet over her like a fort, plays her iPad while she listens to the director’s commentary on a movie playing on her T.V. She lines up all of her stuffed animals friends and plays with them and talks to them. She likes to take them and hide them under her fitted sheet and then take them back out again.

I used to get so upset that she didn’t have friends to play with, that all she liked to do was be in her room. But now? I get it. I get her. This is where she feels safe, loved and happy. Her stuffed animals ARE her friends. She loves them and gets upset when she can’t find the one she’s looking for. She loves to play with them. She enjoys being alone knowing we are right downstairs. She is happy. What else is there?

I think we should all try to live more like Olivia. She doesn’t worry about her weight, her looks or anything. She lives in the moment. She is happy with who she is exactly the way she is right now. She doesn’t apologize for who she is or feel bad because she’s “not normal”. She’s the happiest person I know and I, for one, am going to strive to be more like her in every way possible.