Saturday, Dec 13, 2025 at 4:37 PM

So much awesomeness, it’s hard to note it all.

At the baptism there were two boys getting baptized.

One is an 8yr old boy that I have an awesome connection with that has an autism diagnosis and is mostly nonverbal.

I absolutely love that kid.

He was soooo excited to see the waters he was going to be baptized in.

The music was beautiful, that talks were nice and there was a lot of love felt for both of the boys.

I did get irritated tho at one point. One of the talks was given by a lady that was only talking to the other boy being baptized, totally ignoring my friend.

This felt very very dismissive and evoked an anger inside of me to the point of being concerned that I may make a scene and maybe it will be better if I left the rest of the ceremony.

Instead I stood in the back and moved back and forth while holding my youngest in my arms.

After she had concluded her part I noticed that she had sat by the other boy. I pieced together that she was the mother of the kid she was focusing on.

This had helped me put things into perspective and lessened the irritation and sense of dismissiveness that was expressed.

It still don’t sit right with me.

As the event had concluded, I sat next to my friend that had just had a baby girl talking about how beautiful and how strong she is.

She had just come out of the NICU a couple of weeks ago.

Just as we were talking about her little love bundle, she got returned to her mom.

As soon as she was back in her mom’s arms, she locked her baby blue eyes on me.

Ever since I was young, kids, neurodivergent kids, and animals have always seemed to be drawn to me.

Seeing that her little one was focused on me, her mom asked if I’d like to hold her.

Of course, to hold a being created in love, gladly.

Her mom and I continued to chat and she kept her sparkling blues locked on me watching every gesture and inflection of my voice.

After a little while she began to stick her little tongue out, signaling she was hungry.

I asked her mom if it was feeding time and she said she had a bottle and if I would like I could give it to her. Of course I would.

After feeding and burping her, I thanked her mom for the opportunity to see and hold her beautiful little one.

Then it came time to help clean up and leave.

As we were all about to leave, the lady that was dismissive towards my friend was about to leave.

I was conflicted as to whether or not I should address her lack of attention towards my friend or not.

I said a quick internal prayer and got a clear signal that I should.

Hesitant and not feeling comfortable in doing so, somehow I found that strength to ask, “I’m curious why when you were giving your talk that you’d only focused on your son and not Jackson?”

Her reply was, “I was just so focused on him that I didn’t even think of it.”

As a person with an ADHD diagnosis I can understand hyper focus where nothing else exists.

To this I responded, “Being that it was your boy I understand that most of your focus naturally would be in his direction.”

I also complimented her on the parts of the talk that she had done that incorporated metaphor and story.

I left feeling good that I stood up for my friend, and that I was able to find grace and understanding in the moment.

This experience ended with my friend coming up to me and giving me the biggest hug and knuckle bump as I told him how proud of him I was of who he is.

It felt good to show love in both a soft caring and supportive way along with a more firm inquisitive way.

Then it was off to the Special Olympics Christmas celebration!