I Think I'm in Love

Ya know, I've only felt this way about one other boy. He stole my heart a couple summers ago, goes by the name of Luca :) He's the five year old with autism that I got to work with for a couple of months at a special needs preschool. He's who spurred me on to wanting to work with kids with special needs. He made a tremendous impact on me. I was his "B" :) Today I met exactly what I imagine a teenage version of Luca would be. Now I didn't make any connections to Luca during the session, it wasn't till afterward when I was trying to figure out what it was about him that seemed to familiar to me that the light turned on. He came bounding into the room, he'd just got done swinging his aide told us (Luca's fav) and he kept talking about riding the bus (Luca's second fav). He was almost as tall as me and about 12 times as fast. He bounced around the room with precision I could only dream of having. I mean he would run and leap and land right smack in front of a drum and not knock it over. I could walk 10 feet around a drum and still manage to tip it somehow :) He was so full of energy he could barely sit still and needed endless sensory stimulation, but he was also so full of joy that couldn't possibly get upset with him. Oh and he had absolutely no concept of personal space, a trait I've found common in men, but it was so much more endearing on him. He does what my supervisor coined as "drive by's". He'll pace and leap around the room and on his way by come with in about 2 inches of your face, his way of saying hello. About mid-session, he paced by and pressed his forehead to mine for just a half a second. That was it. My heart was his. Of course, this isn't good because he needs to be aware of personal boundaries and work on having the "Stranger Danger" reflex, so those are some of his goals. But it's just like when Luca was supposed to be working on walking the halls independently and he would reach up and grab my hand, the therapist in me pulls away (most of the time) so that he can grow, but my heart gets touched just the same. This is gonna be a good year.