Our new house has stairs. This is cool for the kids, since they haven't had them before. Melissa especially likes how her room, up the stairs at the end of the hall, is quiet and secluded from everyone. Most of the time, she is up in her room, and if I intrude she is quick to remind me "I'm okay, you can go now." The clinically cold DSM-IV uses the term "lack of shared attention" and it was one of the things I noticed about how different it was to raise Melissa. She was always happy to be viewing the world from a private box, never needed to show me what she was watching, never bringing me into her space.
But yesterday, in the middle of a quiet rainy afternoon, a voice came down from the stairs above, a voice sent to me. "Mom!" Melissa said. "I see the rainbow! Come here, come look out my window!"
I ran up the stairs to her. We looked out the window together, and we shared the view. "That is so beautiful!" I said. She smiled at me. "And so are you." I thought to myself, as I gave her a hug and was not pushed away.
