Ty's First Smoothie

Yesterday I was driving down the road and saw a man dressed as a giant banana and immediately pulled over.  He had a sign saying smoothies at Tropical Smoothie were 99 cents.  So I decided that was as good a time as any for Ty to try his first smoothie.  We ordered some pineapple banana concoction and I was pleased to see that he liked it.  Actually he loved it.  He didn't want to share and I promise he drank more than half of that cup. 

While we were sitting outside enjoying our smoothie and the salsa music (not sure exactly what it was, but it felt tropical... or at least Hispanic) a woman and her little girl walked by.  We started talking to them and they joined us at our table.  Ty had been playing with my keys and dropped them through the holes in his chair and was really mad about it.  He was trying to reach his chubby little hand through the hole, looking at me and going "Mamamamama!", all the while refusing to give up his smoothie.  Just as I started to get frustrated, the woman said "Wow, what great communication he has!"  I had to laugh and agreed that he certainly lets me know when he's upset.

What she said next made me so thankful for every frustrating encounter I've had.

"My older son is autistic and I've been working really hard with him to get him to communicate at all.  You need to be thankful for how great he is at showing his emotion."

And I was.

And it just wound up being a neat conversation about experiences we've had with our boys and things like early intervention programs, therapies, and the like.  And I think we both left grateful for the incredible experiences we've been able to have so far with our boys.

All because of a guy in a banana suit.