I was getting all ready to write a post about how we’ve been watching in amazement as Lily becomes this smiley, giggly little girl; how she is overcoming her aversion to using her hands with so much speed that we can barely keep up with her; how I no longer feel slighted when she stops doing whatever cute thing she was doing as soon as I pick up the camera, because she’s doing the same thing for her kindergarten teacher who was just trying to take a video to show us how fast and furious she is in her walker.
And then fate intervened.
Lily got into her first fight at school.
Lily got into her first fight at school and she was not the target but the instigator! Our girl, who doesn’t speak and doesn’t walk, has somehow become the bully of her classroom – her classroom with only 4 kids in it!
She was sitting and sharing the classroom ipad with another girl, who for the sake of privacy I will call Chloe. It seems that they were doing a nice job of sitting together and sharing the ipad when Chloe got excited and started to inch it a little closer to herself. Lily, who has a love (read: obsession) of anything with a screen, decided that this was not okay with her and she reached over and grabbed Chloe by the hair and pulled her back, basically telling her to get her little butt back in line.
I know that I’m speaking of this in a light hearted tone and in no way am I trying to dimish the effects of actual bullying. While we, along with her teachers, shared a laugh at Lily’s ability to communicate clearly even when she can’t verbally express herself, we also made sure that she doesn’t get away with actions like this. If she’s old enough and cognizant enough to have such purposeful actions, then she’s old enough and cognizant enough to start to learn that there are consequences to those actions. But I would by lying if I didn’t say that a tiny part of me was so proud of her. With our without limitations, this girl is showing us fully what a strong and independant woman she’s going to be.