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Bus Stop Story

Brian told me about this one day last week. There’s a little boy down the road from us who is autistic, but rather high functioning (he’s very scarily smart). His house is the bus stop and he and Taylor have an interesting relationship. He’s in 2nd grade. He sees “the Kindergartener” coming up the road and says, “Oh No!!!!” At times, it feels a little like a big brother / annoying little sister type of relationship. Oh, and Taylor is by no means innocent in this. She knows she can annoy him and will do so very intentionally! Well, apparently his parents felt he was being overly mean to her because one morning, she got a note from him apologizing for being mean to her. The next morning, as Brian and Taylor went to the bus stop, he very happily and excitedly recognized their arrival and announced that he was going to marry Taylor! Taylor then said, “There are lots of other girls your age…” and then something about it being too early to decide something like that. She’s wise beyond her meager 5 years! (at least this time - we’ll have to remind her of this the next time she talks about marrying a boy from church or daycare!)

Side note, she LOVES riding the bus. She also thoroughly enjoyed riding it home the one Friday I was off work. She loved it so much that she told us that she wanted to ride it home again. We (I) frantically explained that she would be coming home to an empty and locked house - no! She suggested that she could stay at a friend’s house (the boy mentioned in the story above). Brian then told her that she’d miss out on all the fun things they do in her After-School program and I believe that’s what convinced her. (Phew!)