Bearizona and BFFs

Last month Lu went with her preschool class for her first ever full day field trip. The class went to a wild animal park in Williams, AZ called Bearizona (yes, the focus is on bears). She had to be gone from 9am-2pm which meant for the first time ever, she had to do her tube feeding in front of her classmates. I was a little nervous about this and was thinking of going with the class myself to make sure that everything went ok, but Stew volunteered so I could still take care of getting Myffy to and from her preschool and therapies.

While Lu was at Bearizona, something wonderful happened! There have always been a couple of kids in Lu's class who are a bit interested in her, and who can be roped into doing social games with her, but on this day it seemed that she really and truly made a friend. Everyone was so excited about Lu and her new friend that Stew, Lu's aide and Lu's teacher all messaged me pictures of Lu and her friend holding hands as they walked around the park!

They walked around, they danced with each other, they sat by each other during lunch and generally had a good time together! For those of you who don't really know Lu, this is a very big and very awesome development!!! Lu has always been generally nice to other kids and has even had moments of having a passing interest in some particular kid or another, but her interest in this little girl has gone on past this one day and she still gravitates to her in class and always wants to hold her hands. I am super excited about Lu's new friend, but still can't help feeling just a little nervous about the idea that she could soon get tired of holding hands and dancing all the time without speech. She is a typically developing little girl who just happens to be very sweet and very patient, but I imagine that when she plays games with other kids, they talk, they pretend, they decide to have rules in their games when they play. And even though Lu has come so far since last year, she still isn't quite up to all of that.

Hopefully that is just needless worry and other kids will accept and appreciate my sweet little Lu for the wonderful person she is. Conversation or no conversation.