I know that thing.

I can hear it.  "Baby!  Bit slow but dang ain't he a smart thang!"

I can hear it.  She's not here, she's up THERE, but if I can't hear it, I'll be a monkey's uncle. 

Since I was pregnant I've felt my grandmother, Rukai's great grandmother (Great Granny Rainbow Angel) just, well...THERE.  Has all to do with rainbows which is a far longer story than I have time for just now but by and large, it's stuck in my head, like this cold I've had over a week and can't seem to get rid of.  She's watched out for me, for him, for us, and she's just there.  When he was very small and giggling at the walls, I knew who he saw.  And as Forrest Gump said, 'That's all I have to say about that.'

But I can hear it, by god, I can hear it.  And today, in some way, I saw what she's seeing.  The wheels.  Turning, turning, rolling and cruising.  Skipping over potholes, doing donuts in the parking lot on a packed layer of snow, burning rubber on a racetrack.  Those wheels, those wheels.  That magical thing they call 'imaginative play' where the child takes a thing and does something with it that is of the child's own imagination, not what the thing is for but what the child thinks the thing can do.  This thing does that?  Bollocks, I say it does THIS. 

Go on my boy.  Tell that thing what it does.  You tell it.  Speak loudly or forever hold your peace.

The child speaks.  The child SPEAKS.  With those brilliantly shining wheels.  'This thing is going to do this now.'  And the rolling of those wheels fills time and time rolls on and with it we roll.  Like a snowball on a mountain, we roll and we grow bigger than even ourselves and we land with a thump and say 'sittin here til the thaw, brother.  Merry Christmas and Happy New Year and dear Life: let's dance, you and me.'  And we dance.

(I hope you dance.  Oh, yes but he dances.)

And shouldn't we all live like this?  More in a 'they said this thing was for THIS but I think it can do THAT so let's rock and roll' way
vs
a 'square peg into square hole, done, let's go buy another Porsche cos I'm such a fecking genius' way.

Take the latter if that's what you want.  Us?  We have a conscience.  We're good.  You go drive that crooked road, but we'll stick around Morality Street and do some donuts for you.

It is my greatest hope that our son just embraces 'that thing'.  I know that thing.  As a child I made crowns out of cardboard and tin foil.  As an adult I've crafted a North Pole out of a cardboard carpet roll, some wrapping paper and a swodge of red ribbon.  I am the 'go to' software geek in the office, because no matter what that THING is, I can bend it to do what is required by me, if there is any remote way it can be done.  I will seek that way and I will make the round peg fit.  As I live and breathe I will make it fit.  And oh my stars, what a comfort it is to know the thing I most want our magnificent boy to excel at - the thing he is proving to be well capable of excelling at - is the thing I do best.  Easy teachins?  With a student like this...BRING IT.

I am loving every second. 

Intellectually disabled?  Tell you what, I've taught dance for years, I've dealt with people in business for years, and I would trade the lot for a thousand more to teach who learn like this. 

It is all I can do some days to withhold my anger at the bods who threw Rukai away just after his birth.  I seriously just don't register where there is a problem, let alone what that 'problem' is. 

Slow does not mean 'never'.  It means 'late'.  BFD.  (You translate.)

Let those wheels roll.  Hit a curb, smash some glass, cripes, collide with a flipping iceberg.  In your time, in your way, as you see fit, you will roll.

___

The wheel is turning and you can't slow down
You can't let go and you can't hold on
You can't go back and you can't stand still
If the thunder don't get you then the lightning will...

...Small wheel turning by the fire and rod
Big wheel turning by the grace of God
Every time that wheel turn round
Bound to cover just a little more ground

- Grateful Dead