Imagination is more important than intelligence

Yesterday, the Midgets and I went to a Christmas decoration 'workshop'.  The Boy was not having his best day, the session was unstructured, I had had an extra two kids deposited on me due to my inability to say "no" and generally it was not a huge amount of fun.

The Boy and Lid refused to leave until they had made decorations for their favourite grown ups (which may well feature blood on them, not because I am a secret serial killer, rather I got punched quite hard in the nose at one junction).  The Boy was unable to settle, and was extremely excited by the whole event.  Lid ran around dancing with long strips of ribbon, twirling them around in the air and singing to herself.

In the end, we were asked to leave.

For 5 minutes, I was so jealous of the extra two's parents, who had their neurotypical children who did what they were told, complied with everything and sat quietly following the rules.

Then of course I came to my senses - my two, both on the spectrum and apparently unable to emotionally connect with other people, had made presents for various people because they wanted to, and entirely of their own accord. They'd even shown a lot more imagination than the others, and hadn't followed the woman's instructions (which appeared to send her apopleptic with incomprehension that they may want to do things their own way).

I remain, as ever, deeply proud.  And slightly bruised.