"I'm not supposed to tell you that you have a booger in your nose". Not exactly the words the gentleman in the checkout aisle wanted to hear I guess since he stormed away like a big baby.
I on the other hand was beaming with pride at the fact that my sweet, say-it-like- it-is daughter prefaced her comment with "I'm not supposed to tell you" meaning she was learning what may not be appropriate or necessary to say.
For those of us you have children with special needs maybe you can relate. Our gains and strides oftentimes appear to be none less than utter parenting failures to others. Yet there we are praising our children acting like foolish baboons as we explain to the man with a booger hanging out of his nose that he did in fact benefit by being informed of this.
In our house words are treasured friends and we practice using all kinds of them in all sorts of different fashions. Some words give meaning to diagnoses and then we throw around cool acronyms that make us sound super smart. Some words make us belly laugh until we feel as though we did a hard ab workout. Some words build us up and blanket us with affirmation while others empty our entire being leaving us a casualty of their warfare.
My son, Emmanuel loves words, although his may be temporarily tucked away he loves to hear them from others. There is one word, however he feels no love for at all, in fact he despises it; the dreaded 'NO'.  Two letters and so simply spoken, this word sets our little boy into a tailspin of a tantrum. Powerful!
My love for words set ablaze my passion for writing and I feel so honored that my passion has seeped into my children's hearts. Just yesterday my daughter wrote us an eloquently written letter explaining her desperate need for an iPhone. Words!
As I venture out to the grocery store again with my children unknowing whom or how many folks we will offend I can rest assured that we have words to ease their pain.