We worry about what a child will become tomorrow, yet we  forget that he is someone today.  ~Stacia Tauscher

I know the title of the post is self-explanatory but want to share more.

When my daughter was 2-year-old we noticed the only way she would play with anything and everything was to line them up …no matter what she had, cars, toys, shoes…. They all would fall in same line and then the game would end. She never used to play like other kids…this was when we started noticing other things and then came to know about her Autism…we were told most of the autistic kids don’t or can’t pretend play….you know how we would take a comb or a pencil box and act as if it were a phone or a microphone and talk.

Most of them( Autistic kids) will have no idea what to do with a car or a doll ….And we were told by the doctors and special educators to teach Bonita pretend play…..that is wroom with a car,or dressing up a doll,make up,pretending to be doctor,or teacher etc…and age appropriate plays and language.

And this is how our journey to Zonita began.

[I was quite a naughty kid and I always thought Oh all these brilliant naughty ideas and no one to share with....and look at Gods mysterious ways...he must have really loved my naughtiness for now he wanted my daughter to learn them and that too from one of the best in the business.]

Our pretend play sessions were full of mischief and laughter (otherwise what is the point) like this one time we pretended there was water in the room and we swam across room and fought with crocodiles and a snake.

Oh there were so many things we did…One Day I told her we both have to talk loud as we are in a market and there is too much noise all around, And then next time we whispered as we were in jungle surrounded by dinosaurs

We still do a lot of things Crazy and fun.

One day we decided we will only talk in NATO phonetic Alphabets….Oh! that was tough and we could not continue it for more than half an hour ,For just to say “Bonita finish your food” meant

Bravo Oscar November IndiaTango Alpha Foxtrot India November IndiaSierra Hotel Yankee Oscar Uniform Romeo Foxtrot Oscar Oscar Delta

That was tough and we laughed more than we talked every time some big sentence came up

Anyways the point of all these were to introduce her to endless possibilities…having fun with whatever we had, teaching her to be naughty too….so in all these crazy moments we decided we will have alphabet days.

So on a B day every word would start with B

Bonita finish your food would be Bonita binish bour bood and then she would say bes bommy

One of the Tuesday afternoon after picking her from the gate where the school van drops off all the kids,we were in the lift and having this ‘B’ routine, there was one more kid in the lift.He must have enjoyed it a lot cos he told me Bauntie boo bar bo bunny

To which I said- Bank bou.Bi bam blad bou biked bit

He laughed and said this is fun I have to tell this to my friends

I asked him his name and he said I don’t like my name. That… that was the point I fell in love with his cute little kid…..You See I don’t like my name too ( It’s a long story will tell you some other day, Hope my parents are reading this ). So I told him I will call him chuckles cos I love the way he laughs. He laughed and agreed( and his names keeps changing Zuckles on a Zday,Nuckles on Nday)

Now I have to mention here,Even though we live in the same building Chuckles and I don’t meet that often due to different school timings

So next time we met it was a Z day and he joined in

Zello Zonita,he said

Bonita was happy to have a new Zriend and she said Zello Zuckles

Bonita told him she didn’t like one of her teachers and zuckles said that was normal and so on

And yesterday all of a sudden zuckles showed up at my door with his friends and asked me what day was it I said it was Zday and he grinned and said he loved Z

So all of us spoke about anything and everything in Z they laughed and rolled on floor.And told me they will have these funny days when they play.

Then one of the kids who was 6 years old said he hated math’s( he said Zi zate Zaths)….Everyone understood and sympathized

Then he asked me auntie can’t we live without learning math!

What??? there was a pin drop silent and all of them were looking at me And I was desperately trying to think of something clever.I said I didn’t like maths at all ( I really don’t) but some things in life you must learn, like riding a cycle…or learning how to swim…

How can math be like cycle zuckles asked?

Well, I told when you grow up you may  or may not need to ride a cycle but if you learn riding one you will learn how to balance and this will come handy in other things too…Similarly when you grow up you may not have to solve the same questions you solve now….But plus minus, multiplication, division, fractions…are the basic math which you will need in your day-to-day life.

So they all decided they will learn basic math ( atleast)except for one kid who loved math

Phew

So zuckles and zis zriends zaid zeir zoodzyes zand zent zaway

What a day we had…

Oh before I go… Today is Nday

No nave na neautiful nay nall nof nou nand Nake nare