warm fuzzy

(My sons holding hands on a walk.)

Maybe it's the cherry pie that Henry and I just baked and sampled, or maybe I'm getting all wrapped up in the season- I'm really counting my blessings right now.
It's no accident that Thanksgiving comes at this dreary time of year- something pleasant (or at least busy) to keep us occupied, or we might all be tempted to hide under the covers all day long. I know it was hard for me to get moving on this Monday morning- the sun not up yet and the rain drizzling down. Today I realized the truth in the cliche: my kids are literally the thing that make me willing to get out of bed every day. I don't mean that in a hideously depressed kind of way. I just mean- on a day like today I cannot imagine being motivated by anything else. But those two boys make me smile every morning- they make it worthwhile. They're the reason I go to work and the reason I go to sleep so early and the reason I try to figure shit out.

Today's dreary Monday-ness was worsened by the fact that I scooted Henry on to the bus this morning without his backpack. So I needed to drive it up to him at school before lunchtime. What a lucky mistake that turned out to be! I got to see his classroom buzzing with activity. Henry "introduced" me to his teachers and classmates. (Well, sort of. He said "this is my mom", but usually neglected to tell me the other person's name.) I was so impressed by the way that all of the children told me their names and mumbled "nice to meet you". They made varying levels of eye-contact, but wow- when those kids looked me in the eye? I was smitten.

I may have written before about the old man in Chicago who said that (then-1.5-year-old) Henry had an "old soul". There's something special about spectrum kids, whether it's that they have "old souls" or just that I know how much it takes for them to look me sweetly in the eye and introduce themselves. But whatever it is, I'm hooked.

Mix in a few laughs with old friends on the phone this weekend, my lifeline of internet friends that I can now reach through various media (although I haven't figured out how to Twitter from my cell phone), the sound of two boys and their dad roughhousing upstairs, Thomas' artwork (pictured above), and I have a lot to be thankful for.