I want the yellow smile-y face

First time at the skate park, my little Obiwan wants to take his penny board, feels more comfortable on that size… ok…..  He is the only one with a penny board – they all have long boards – and a few people mention to me, “hey mom, you might want to consider a bigger board”.

I know.

I am so proud of him, he doesn’t care that his board is different and he doesn’t care that he is wearing his motorcycle body guard gear with all the elbow, wrist, and knee guards, plus the awesome helmet.  He is proud.  He starts out watching for about 10 minutes, then pushes his board with his foot to see how it moves and the speed…several times… then he rides the board a short distance…several times…. then over and over until he does the small hill, up and over, without having to push off again at the top.

He looks over at me and smiles.

Then he sits, quietly in the middle of it all – too quiet and pensive – I know he is low.  I wait for a few minutes and watch.  It felt like I waited 10 minutes, but surely it was only 1-2 minutes and I caught his eye and flagged him over.  Hey bud, this is great, how’s it going?  “great” …Taking a break?  “yeah” …How’s your blood sugar?  “fine, it’s at a good number”  …Ok, great, when you started you were 112, think it is still right around there?  “yeah… well, no I feel low”  …Ok, so wanna go get your bag?  “yeah”….

….and off he goes over to his bag, 1 glucose – I can see he is still pensive and a zoning… he looks at me, uses sign language (remnants of his first language remain), he signs “I AM LOW REALLY LOW” and I sign, “Ok, have another”… he chews up another glucose tab.  I recognize at my distance, the “I’ve been on a raft at sea for 9 days” kind of chewing madness coupled with spurts of breathing, no time to breath those slow and easy breaths.  He sits for another minute, gets up (still looks zombie-like to me!)… walks a few steps, watches… and goes back to his bag and signs, “I need one more” and I sign, “go for it”… three glucose tabs and another couple minutes and I see the glow – the energy – filling him up from his toes up through the top of his head, shinning through his eyes and out his finger tips, like when clouds move and expose the sun taking the shadows away in a smooth slow motion.

Whew… and DANG I am proud of this kid!

After about 2 hours he says, “Mom, I wanna try the big board. I think I know why they use the bigger ones.  With the penny board, I can only go so high up the bowl and it doesn’t lean around like the big boards. I will fall on the penny board where the big board can keep a grip on the side.  Also, the grip material on the top keeps me on better.”

How wonderfully astute and correct.  I love physics – I love when he loves physics!

All the boards have some kind of crazy design on the bottom

…and he says, “I want to get the one with the yellow smiley face.”

I think, wow, so amazing that he is unaffected by the crazy board designs.

He still just wants a simple and sweet yellow smiley face!  I know that won’t last forever – the innocence and freedom to just choose what he wants without influence of what he sees around him.

— I am in awe.