City Kids

Today we took the kids into Manhattan and had brunch at Erin's restaurant, followed by some playground time and then a playdate in Brooklyn with old friends from the Down syndrome playgroup we used to attend when we lived there.

At the playground there was a group of little boys, maybe five years old? (I am so bad at guaging the age of typical kids). Leo was fascinated by them as he is all older kids and wanted to climb on the same structure. He was sort of following them around but sort of doing is own thing. There was one little boy who seemed to target Leo before he even opened his mouth, he seemed to sense Leo was different. He started to say things like "he's a baby, he's the littlest baby I've ever seen. He can't talk."

I can't imagine this child knew about Down syndrome...could he have known about Leo was just by looking at him? Leo was talking a bit, just chatting, as he does, but he's hard to understand sometimes and it's not like he speaks in complete sentences. But the little boy started on Leo before he said a word. And then he kept taunting Leo (luckily Leo could have cared less). Leo was just playing and climbing and sliding and doing his thing.

I wanted to punch that little boy. I know, I know, he's five and I'm the grown up but come on! Leave my guy alone! And of course it made me think about the future. There will be plenty of times when I'm not there to throw a punch (OK, glare). Then again I speak from experience to know that you don't need to have 47 chromosomes to get teased.

I'll post some nice city playground photos on Monday. Minus the mean kid.