Day 1

We made it through Day one. Not without a fair amount of whining from Zachary, but we made it. During the afternoon we went to SBS (The Student Bookstore) in downtown EL. We thought we'd go get some Final Four t-shirts (yahoo! Go GREEN) for the game on Saturday. On the way downtown Zachary (who's NINE) said, "Mom, I'd like to go to Saper Galleries sometime again soon". Yes, it is an art gallery here in East Lansing. Zachary is my little artist and his work varies widely. I must say, he is pretty good. I know I'm the mom, but really.


We went to SBS first, which is literally across the street from the gallery. How easy is that? SBS was HOPPIN'. Wow they were restocking those final four racks as fast as it was flying off. Recession? Not in EL today! I overheard college students calling their parents and asking if they could use their credit cards! Really. It was awesome and the excitement in the air was palpable. Daniel was distressed because there was a TV on with basketball on it. You know what that means. Fear of the Belle Tire guy. I have to hand it to him though. He stayed in there. He didn't cover his ears and run out. He held it together. He was mad, don't get me wrong. But he hung in there. We bought our t shirts and face tattoos, paid and headed to the gallery.


I KNOW some of you are thinking "I could never bring my autistic child into an art gallery." Well, I'm here to say, at one point, I couldn't have either. But now, he loves it. We walked through the door and Daniel said, "It's QUIET in here. . . . too quiet" (Monsters Inc quote he said) then looked at me and said, "we have to be quiet in here." When I saw the hand blown beautiful vases set out around the gallery, the only thing I did was take Daniel's coat from him so he wouldn't keep swinging it around. I stuck by him and Zachary mostly wandered on his own. He was really taking everything in. Daniel and I looked at Raku pottery, oil paintings as well as the Dr Seuss exhibit that is there right now. One oil painting Daniel particularly liked and he looked at me and said,"can I touch it?" I said that really wasn't a good idea. And he didn't.



We had a wonderful afternoon looking and talking about the different art. Zachary was explaining on the way home that he wanted to recreate some of Seuss's sketches and bring them back to the gallery for a comparison. I thought it was a great idea.



So internet. I'm here to tell you, things change. Our kids mature. It is possible they won't always be a flurry of destruction. While Daniel doesn't seem to be able to create art he has an appreciation for it. When you are that visual, color and texture mean a lot to you. He knew how to behave in this situation without any talking about it ahead of time. We weren't even planning on going there! We changed the schedule, enjoyed the gallery, the entire gallery and had conversations about it. If you would have told me that 6 years ago I would have NEVER believed it. For those of you at age 5 or 6 or even younger. Keep doing what your doing, one foot in front of the other. You never know where those feet can and will take you.