Unbelievable

We are friends with a couple who have twins, a boy and girl. The kids are neurotypical, and so, even though they are about a year younger than Kai, they are much further along developmentally.

When they were younger, we had play dates with them. But, Kai did not play well. Much of the time, he sat in Mom’s lap, or got upset, or otherwise did not engage with the other kids.

It has been a while since we’ve seen them, but they stopped by a few weeks ago to drop things off for the Japan-relief benefit garage sale that my wife was having.

The boy, Benny, proudly told me that he just made yellow belt in karate. I offered my congratulations. Then, I mentioned that Kai was taking karate, too. Benny asked what color belt Kai had. When I told him that Kai was a green belt, his jaw dropped and his mouth was agape.

It was obvious that he could not believe that Kai, the boy who was always acting like a baby when he came over to play, the one who could not even ride a bike when he and his sister were able to, the child who would hardly play with him, was actually a higher belt than he was. And not just one level higher, but two.

He said, “Kai is a green belt?!?” as if he could not believe what he heard.

No worries, Benny. I wouldn’t have believed it either if I didn’t see it with my own eyes.