"She said he's weird"

He's was sitting at the counter doing the post school day wrap up, speaking of a little girl from our neighborhood.

"We were walking to school and Nick was doing his clapping thing. She said he was weird. I told her he's autistic and she said it didn't matter, he's still weird."

All the while Nick was clapping, and listening.

There are days that these random bits of information are easy to dismiss and then there are days they settle into a mothers gut with an audible thud. It seemed to be one of those "rock in the gut" kind of days.

I calmly excused myself to the garage. As I rummaged through the sports bin, the winter clothes bin and the car wash supply bin in search of last season's shin guards the days frustrations began running down my cheeks. One shin guard and two flat soccer balls in hand I wiped my face and climbed into the car.

I drove to the neighbors house to collect the little soccer player. Angry at the change and tired from the day he began howling in frustration. The sound wafted throughout the neighborhood as I drove home with the windows open. A long haired, teenage boy began howling back as we passed. I pictured myself driving my minivan up onto the curb to tell him it wasn't funny, not in the least. I wanted to yell out "He's not weird, he's autistic," but I didn't. I drove on in silence.

We collected the rest of the family, a pair of soccer shorts and an iceless water bottle and made the 10 minute drive to the soccer field. We set up our mismatched camp chairs on the sidelines at the end of a long row of camp chairs. They were filled with mismatched families just like ours. I watched Joe hanging on the back of Nick's jersey and Caleb flexing his muscles and kissing them every time he'd make a sweet soccer move. Matthew's dad asked him to calm it down a bit as he was dominating the game, not unlike Mr. Incredible asking Dash to "slow it down a little, come in a close second."

For an hour I was a normal mom, Matt was a normal brother and Nick was a normal kid, scoring three amazing goals amidst cheers from the sidelines.