Mommy's Thoughts about Little Ana

The photo of Ana on the beach is one of our favorites. We love the way she's gazing directly into the camera. We also love how it captures her sweetness. Not only is she sweet, she can also be very silly. We love this about her as well. She laughs and laughs--sometimes big, deep belly laughs. Here are some funny things Ana has done lately:

She adores animals. If we had a dog, according to Ana it would be called "a Ram-Sam-Sam" and if we had a cat, it would be named "oh CatLizard." We have no idea where these names came from, but we're going with them.

Penguins are one of her favorite creatures; she calls herself "Pinguino" and calls her favorite classmates penguins--"Isaiah the Penguin" and "Gabriel the Penguin.

She also has had a thing for cows. At her birthday party in Central Park last weekend, she started singing happy birthday to all of us in "moo" -- and we all joined in (meaning, "moo moo moo moo moo moo, moo moo moo moo moo moo, moo moo moo moo moo mooooo, moo moo moo moo moo moo!").

Along that "mooey" line, when she wants to say "hello" or "I love you" to her favorite people, she comes up very close, with her eyes and nose right next to ours and says a very serious sounding "moooo."

She makes up words to songs all the time. She started singing a song about a "mommy gooney bird" and when her mommy objected to being called such a thing, she ribbed her even more, and constantly adding more animal names that she knows will get to her mommy, such as "mommy hippo," "mommy elephant" (the worst!!!), "mommy lizard," and "mommy snake." When her mommy begs and pleads to be called "mommy butterfly" or something more graceful, she refuses.

On the flip side--and this gets back to her sweetness--the other day mommy and Ana were heading back into Manhattan after six days and nights at the Ronald McDonald House in New Jersey, where Ana endured countless detoxification IVs and HBOT sessions. As we pulled up to our building, she offered up "mommy, you are an awesome driver."

During that same trip, while eating lamb kabobs in a little Greek restaurant, she said: "Mmmmm, this tastes so . . . greeky."

She has a mad crush on twenty-something year old speech and language pathologist "Craigsalad" (so named because he eats egg-salad sandwiches at our house). Craig plays "duck, duck, patos" (duck in spanish) with her and calls her "Patos." So, for a while now she has been calling a lot of people Patos. Her latest variation of that is to add "os" onto the end of almost everything she says. For example, if she wants to make eggs (a favorite), she will say "let's-os make-os eggies-os now-os."

A somewhat alarming statement she made to Auntie Denise and her mommy the other night on the subway was: "I hear-os all-os and know-os all-os" (and indeed, we do think she hears and knows all--we better be careful!). She has caused a lot of people to adopt this pig-latinish way of speaking; the last time we were at the doctor's office getting her chelation IV, eventually all of the nurses and nurses aides were talking this way!

She is definitely the favorite of the doctor's office, as well as of her therapists. In part it is probably because there are comparably very few girls on the Spectrum, but in part it is also because she is so darn cute. I, her mother, can say that because she looks nothing like me . . . she looks like her Spanish-Peruvian father and her grandfather of Scottish ancestry.

And finally, when asked by the head of admissions at the Gillen Brewer School today what her name is, she testily and loudly replied: "I don't have a name. NO NAMES!" (We may have to kiss that school goodbye.)