Sweet Words at Lowe's

Since moving in we have spent many hours at our local Lowe's. Actually, I do believe that we have been there every day since we arrived.

Today was no different. We had to get some irrigation parts. I decided to check out the area rugs since we need some in the family/play room. They had one on clearance for $59 so I wanted to see if they had two. Naturally we could only find the display one.

I very nice, elderly gentleman came to help us. He beamed at Larissa and asked her what her name was. I was shocked, she answered him! He asked her to help him look on the computer to see if they had one. He allowed her to put some numbers in the computer and she was "very helpful" according to him. Larissa beamed. I loved that salesman, he even found our second rug.

Giving her name may not seem like a big deal but for a child with selective mutism it is. Two years ago when she was diagnosed with SM she could not give her name. She would not talk to anyone outside the home at all. She has attended school for two years now with early interventions.

Slowly I have seen improvements; a word here, a reply there. If she is comfortable she is more likely to reply. I guess Lowe's feels like home to her.

I sometimes wonder if three years of visitation with her bio family had anything to do with her struggle with selective mutism. For almost three years she went into a small room for one hour every other week. There were many days that I had to pry her off of me and hand her screaming over to the SW. She did not want to go into that room but didn't have a choice. I hated to hear her cries. Seemed to me that three years of visitation is abusive to the child.

In those three years, she never said one word during visitation.....not one. However, today she told her name to the elderly gentleman who showed her some kindness...how sweet is that?