You CAN teach a 20 year old new tricks!

At 20 years old, Molly still surprises us with new things that she has learned. Not sure if they are taught to her at work, if she is recalling years of lessons attempted to be taught at home, or if finally she is just picking up on things naturally through life?

Brooke loves a good milkshake and Sonic has a fun summer special for 1/2 off milkshakes after 8 pm. It's awesome! He recently asked Molly if she'd like to go after dinner. She of course nodded her head "Yes". 8 pm rolled around and the 3 of us hopped into the car, pulled through the drive through, ordered our shakes and once in hand we proceeded to try and suck them through our straws. No go. WAY too thick. Molly and I both had strawberry chunks blocking the path and Brooke's had an piece of Oreo lodged in the straw. Luckily the drive home is not even a 1/2 a mile away and Brooke mentioned that we could eat them with a spoon when we got home. So with pedal to the medal, we headed home.

Upon arrival in the driveway, Molly booked it out of the car (she does everything fast) and ran straight for the kitchen to grab a spoon. Brooke and I sat down in the TV room to watch a show. This is where Molly shocked us.....she had grabbed THREE spoons and handed one to each of us as she sat down next to Brooke. We looked at each other with surprised faces.

I know that this probably doesn't sound like any big deal to most of you and I'm not even sure that I can adequately put into words why it was so shocking to us but I'll try. I even had to ask Spencer's mom and Brooke if they had words to adequately explain why this was so cool.

1. She thought of someone other than herself! Kids with autism aren't notorious for thinking of what others might want or need.
2. She counted the correct number of spoons. Hey, she can't add or do math (that we know of) so that was kinda cool to see.
3. This was totally unprompted from us. And that's probably the biggest thing as she will do anything that you ask....but she relies almost 100% of the time to be prompted (asked) to do something. So the fact that Brooke had mentioned that she might need a spoon to actually eat the thick shake 10 minutes before, did not mean that he had asked her to give us a spoon too. So when she thought to grab utensils for us; that made our hearts melt. Brooke looked at me with the same surprise that I felt inside. I love when he responds the same way that I do as it validates my reaction. It's nice to share life's little victories with someone else that totally gets your life. Someone else might not see the beauty in that tiny little gesture but a parent sure does.

Cheers to thick milkshakes in the summer!