My Daughter's Friend, The Brick Fairy

So there is this girl in our neighborhood that the kids next door call "the deaf girl." It is true she is deaf and she does not speak except to make occasional grunting sounds. I have never met her parents so I really don't know what else is going on with the girl but she also has very round features, walks hunched over, moves her hands awkwardly and obviously is mentally impaired with her own view of the world. If I had to guess I would say she's a teenager, but do not ask me to narrow down the age. Whatever it is, I'll just come out and say that she is very much a Special Ed kid.

Since the weather got nice, Little A and I have often encountered this girl outside. She spends a lot of her time just roaming around and she also swings a lot on the playground in the middle of the complex. Little A and I also swing, sometimes together and sometimes she's in the baby swing. When we first started seeing the girl around, Little A and the girl would just stare at each other all the time. Staring turned quickly to smiling. Little A watches everything anyone does, but particularly this girl. I started waving when we would see her and I started noticing she would just appear sometimes when we were outside. Little A was being tracked!

Then something odd started happening. Stray bricks began to appear behind mine and El Esposo's cars. At first we thought it was someone playing next door as they have a little pile from their walkway that has fallen apart and they have their own kids and daycare kids there all the time. And yes it was a little annoying, but we quickly began to realize it was too darn systematic to just be kids playing. I would sometimes see the girl wandering around near the time the bricks magically appeared, though I never caught her in the act. El Esposo started calling her "The Brick Fairy" and I decided that we were being marked somehow because she likes our baby. We decided it was kind of cute in a weird sort of way.

The "brick laying" has tapered off but every time I see this girl it is obvious that she is just totally in love with Little A, so I always go up to her for a minute and wave and she waves back and Little A smiles at her. That's been about it until today, the day of fantastic weather.

Today Little A and I went outside in the early afternoon between naps and I set out a big blanket and a few of her toys under a shady tree in the shared area near the playground (since the grass we own is all of a 2 x 3 rectangle with no shade). The out of doors is absolute magic for the babe. No fussing and lots of calm play. Anyway, after a while we noticed our friend lurking in the vicinity. It was absolutely fascinating, so I just watched as she paced back and forth near us and busied herself swatting flies, moving rocks, pine needles, and other debris, and slowly but surely creeping closer to us. I thought of motioning to her to come over but I really just wanted to see how things would play out. I did move a couple toys out of the way so she could come sit on the blanket if she so chose. Little A just kept looking at her per usual. After several minutes she had inched onto the edge of the blanket and she started to play with the baby. She showed Little A how to stack the colored rings on that ubiquitous baby rainbow ring stacking toy she has. After a while Little A started leaning toward the girl and grabbing for her. At first I kind of re-directed her because I wasn't sure how the girl would feel about Little A touching her and heck I don't know what she's capable of--it could be dangerous. But then the girl started to motion to Little A that she should come climb on her lap. Holy crap it was the sweetest thing I have ever seen how she kept patting her lap and looking at Little A. But, since Little A doesn't really know how to climb on someone's lap yet as opposed to just more or less attacking them, I tried to direct her to just touch the girl gently. After a few minutes it was Little A's naptime and so I conveyed that to the girl with a bunch of dopey hand signals, which she apparently totally followed because she started helping me clean up and handed me the blanket after I stood up with the baby.

If that is not sweet enough, check out PART B. After Little A's nap we went for a walk outside with her in my new fancy pants baby carrier and after trolling the nearby neighborhoods, we crossed back near the playground only to find the girl waiting for us. She was sitting at the swing and she had brought her Barbie convertible car with two Barbies in it. Seriously I am just about to cry all over this keyboard with my mommy hormones to think about how she waited there for us, just hoping we would come by. I wanted to get back to start cooking dinner but the girl just grinned over at us and started rolling the Barbie car around and looking at us, as if to say, "Come play with my awesome Barbie car." At this point in Little A's life I think a Barbie car is just one more thing to try and put in the mouth, but the point is the girl is trying to be friends with my baby. So we came over and played for a while and Little A tried to jam the Barbie's head down her throat or, failing that, at least eat all of her hair.

And now I am writing this down so I remember Little A's first friend. Not some other baby or little kid at playgroup (which we haven't managed to make it to), but this lonely, sweet, Special Ed kid.
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Oh, also today Little A gave me a big sloppy kiss on the cheek. Like a dork, I just kept saying, "You kissed me!" Best. Milestone. Ever. (See, I even had to break out the classic bloggy every-word-is-a-sentence for that one.)