Little joys in life

By Heather
Calli and Acer in church. She takes very good care of him, and he fell asleep on her.



Calli has been home for almost a year now, and hasn't really had much luck finding friends. There's Josh, the 8th grader at church, whom she sees 3 times a week, but they aren't anything more than buddies; McKenna also from church, probably her best girl friend, but who also lives further away and goes to a different school and is already booked with acting and dance lessons; Brianna a 5th grader at school who is also blind, but who is not an active running and jumping and having physical fun girl like our Calli.

Calli's been in Brownies, meeting once a month at a local school, since October. Some of the girls still don't talk to her, but others greet her with a shout when they see her come in. We come in about 15 minutes late because of Calli's bus ride home from her school. Still, there weren't any great overtures, until last month, when a Mya mentioned she thought Calli would make a great friend. This was a good meeting to begin with because it was the day before Calli's birthday, and they sang to her, adding Mya's comment, and finding out they lived a couple blocks away - Hurrah!

I emailed Mya's mom, and made plans for the girls to get together some Friday for Bike riding. Mya's backyard faces a large church parking lot, and I knew they could have lots of fun. This afternoon, after school was the day. We all went, Calli, Acer, Mum, Me and walked over. As we approached the house, I remembered meeting the husband and talking adoption with him while we were out with Acer. Yes, it was the same family, and the kids are adopted. The husband even works IT like BIll does. It's so cool to find someone who gets it, and to find such similarities.

It was nice, Mya has a little sister who is almost as tall as Acer even though she's only 3.5. The littles played together, and the older girls had a great time, we went in their back yard where they have a swingset. Mya taught Calli how to flip backwards off the monkeybars, Calli taught Mya how to use a hula hoop as a jump rope and jump it frontwards and backwards. We parents talked, and directed and encouraged as needed. A good time was had by all. When it was time to go, they walked back with us, so they now know for sure where we live. Both families are now looking forward to summer fun between the houses, they have the trampoline, we have the pool. So nice to click with someone, even the girls play styles - active!, match well. I'm looking forward to their being in school together next year.

As an aside, I was pleased to see Calli having fun on their monkeybars as she misjudged them today at school and faced her face on a post - bloody nose and a bruise near her eye. Somehow she didn't even get any blood on her white shirt. Guess a kid playing with her told her to keep her head back. I thought she might be nervous, but she'd shaken it off and learned some new tricks.