I have a lengthy post prepared on “my beef with the GAPS Diet author.” It’s all ready to go. But—

Shelving that post! At least for today. Because I must, must, must tell you about what else Martin did this weekend.

• Saturday evening, back at O’Hare to fly home, we saw another family, with a boy about Martin’s age, boarding our flight. The boy was pulling a Cars-themed roller-board. Unprompted, Martin strolled up to the boy and asked, “Did you bring your own suitcase?”

• Martin didn’t get to bed until almost midnight Saturday night, so I thought that getting up Sunday morning would be a real problem. It was not. When I entered his bedroom to wake him, I reminded him that it was Sunday and he was going to sing with the kids’ chorus at church. He came to life with excitement. “I’m going to sing with the kids’ chorus!” Then he did it. He sang with the kids’ chorus, three songs. He was too excited and bounced around a little. But he sang and clapped and stayed in more or less one spot, without so much as a point or prod from me. I sat in the front pew and recorded the event.

• Also at church, during kids’ time, Martin sat on my lap in the circle with the other kids. When he got fidgety, I asked, “Would you like to go sit with Vincent?”, meaning another boy across the circle. Martin nodded yes (nodded!) and scooted to Vincent. Then, instead of just sidling up, Martin asked, “Vincent, may I sit next to you?” Vincent paused for a second—a very long second, for me—then he smiled and nodded. They sat together the rest of circle time.

• Sunday afternoon, we went to visit friends in another town who have a three-year-old, Sebastian. After some initial shyness, and then goofiness, Martin trotted off to Sebastian’s room, and the two boys played together, interactively, for two hours. They sat at a little table and took turns with different objects, and took turns complaining when each thought the other wasn’t sharing. When I called from the kitchen, “Martin, what are you doing in there?”, he answered, “Me and Sebastian are making apple pie,” and then added, “Well, we’re pretending to make apple pie.” Sebastian is, granted, only three. Nevertheless, the interaction was so significant that Adrian said, “What is this? What’s going on? I’ve never seen this before.”

• Sunday evening we accompanied the same friends to a jack-o’-lantern display. Martin and Sebastian wore their Halloween costumes (an astronaut and a dinosaur, respectively) and chose to hold hands as they walked.

This evening, Tuesday, I had dinner with the parents of another special-needs child. I told them excitedly about the events described above. One of these parents said, “That’s the thing about special needs. What might sound like nothing to another parent is amazing to us.”

Nailed it.