one of my biggest blessings

One of the best blessings I've had in my life is a little girl named Gracie. Gracie is the three year old girl that I babysit every weekday. She has autism, which has certainly been a challenge. Autism is a very mysterious condition, and no one fully understands it.

Gracie doesn't really use words to communicate-but she is definitely learning. Because of this, it's kind of like I have had to learn her "language." Each week, I notice her start to use more and more words. I try and teach her little things and sing songs with her while I'm with her.

Autistic children tend to learn by seeing and repeating. One day, we were watching Sesame Street. They were building a tower with bricks on this episode, so she started building a tower with her toys and said "tower, tower!" She has learned that when someone takes a picture of someone, they say "cheese." So today, she picked up her fisher price camera and told me to say cheese.

Her memory is absolutely astounding. Four months ago, she came over to my house while her mom had a meeting, and I took her in my backyard to play baseball. Yesterday, her and her mom came over to visit with my mom-and Gracie remembered "baseball, baseball!" It was quite impressive.

Though she may not use language as much as the average three year old, I don't think she is any less smart. She is quite clever, and even understands when I'm kidding around or being funny. It's truly amazing and I would love to learn more about this condition.

The amazing thing is that the doctor said that people probably won't be able to tell she had autism as a child by the time she is 5. She goes to special classes and has speech therapy every week which helps her greatly.

Enough about the autism-Gracie may have this at the moment, but it certainly doesn't define her. She is such a sweet and fun little girl. Her mom tells me that she always asks for me, and that melts my heart. It makes me so happy to see that she is happy. It's also so refreshing to be able to act like a kid for four hours a day-singing, watching PBS, and playing dolls with her. Seeing her face light up fills me with joy.

I think babysitting is a great way to learn about kids. I certainly won't have kids for a very long time, but when I do, I know I will be a good mom. Even though I'm just Gracie's babysitter, I feel like I'm part of their family.

I am so thankful and blessed to be able to be a part of her life.