Looking at life a little differently....

So, most of you reading this know that my oldest daughter was born with autism. She is considered high-functioning, so often times you almost forget that she is any different from anyone else. However, every once in awhile things come along that remind me, that how she sees the world is very different from how I do!

As an example, we were at the grocery store on Friday night (yes, I know - its pathetic but that's my big weekend night out. Woo hoo!). I asked my other daughter, Bretten, whether or not we needed any eggs because a) I knew she and Mychael had been eating scrambled eggs for breakfast fairly often, and b) I also knew that she and Cydanie had been baking lately, and finally, c) Cyd informed me earlier that she intended to make cookies - all of which would indicate that our household consumption of eggs was on the rise! Bretten assured me, however, that we had plenty of eggs. I was being a typical grumbly parent and said, jokingly, "OK, but if we end up running out of eggs, I'm sending you to the store to go get more. AND, I'm making you walk!"

Bretten, pre-teen that she is, just rolled her eyes at me. Cydanie, on the other hand, said, "Why would you want to make her walk to the store, Mom?"
"So that I don't have to drive her," I replied.
"Why don't you want to drive her?"
"Because I don't want to waste the gas it would take to bring her all the way back to the grocery store just to get eggs," I said.
Then Cydanie gave me one of her priceless looks that seemed to say that she thought I was just about the silliest person on the planet, and said, "Well, you could just get some eggs at the gas station, you know!"

Yes, I know. She's absolutely right, I could just go get some eggs at the gas station....

Which reminds me of one other example of Cyd's unique outlook on the world. One time, about three years or so ago (I think Cyd was in the 7th or 8th grade at the time), we were on our way home and drove by a small pasture on the corner. In this pasture was a horse, I think of the "paint" type - a white body with large black splotches on it, kind of like a Holstein cow. The route was one we use fairly frequently, so I didn't think much of it one way or the other. But Cydanie said to me, "Mom, is that a horse or a cow?"

I marvel at how her brain works and how the world must seem to her. I looked at the horse, saw it was the outline of the horse, and without even thinking about it, assumed it was horse. Cydanie saw the outline of the horse, but with the coloring of a cow, and deliberated on how to weight that information - is the outline of the figure more telling, or the way the figure is filled in? Sometimes I think it would be absolutely fascinating to walk in her footsteps for a day, and look at life a little differently....