A Tidbit of "Normal" for Noah: Friendships

Noah doesn't make friends easily because he doesn't understand social norms.  Most of the time, he leaves social situations feeling frustrated, angry and depressed.  As his mom, it leaves me sad and disheartened.  I want my son to be surrounded by good friends and to know what it feels like to be well liked.

This past weekend, we both got to see a different side of things.  Noah went to church camp with other kids his age from our church.  He went last year and had a wonderful time.  It was a much bigger group this year, so I was a little nervous.  There was an informational meeting two weeks ago and I delighted in listening in on my son and two of his friends plan their sleeping and trip-riding arrangements. My heart sang a song of joy!  I don't think I could have been any happier when I realized these two boys, T and E, were including my son in their plans.  Noah wasn't pushing his way in and they weren't being forced to include him.  They were all conspiring together!  When Noah arrived home from camp, happy and exhausted, most of his stories included these two boys.

Tonight, while dropping Noah off at VBS at the church up the road (not our home church), we realized T was also in attendance!  Not just that, but he was happy to see Noah and even happier that he and Noah would be in the same class together (I'm not so certain their teacher felt that way at the end of the evening!)!  Personally, I wanted to hug T.  I felt a little Chihuahua-like standing there thinking, "You like my son?!  You really do?!  You like him?!  You really really do?!"  The smile on my son's face said it all: He has a friend and he was happy to see that friend.  It made all the difference in his evening.

I'm so grateful to these two young boys for showing Noah the power of friendship.  I'm grateful to them for being big enough, smart enough and wonderful enough to look beyond differences to see Noah for who he is and for being my son's friends.  I'm also grateful to their parents for raising such strong young men of good character, morals and ethics.  May they all be so blessed.