I Apologized. And Then Wondered Why.

New York City was busy. The streets were elbow to elbow, which made Micah retreat to the safety of his stroller of his own accord. We were grateful, because keeping an eye on that boy in that crowd would not have been easy. Or fun. But the sensory overload took it's toll on the boy regardless. By midafternoon when we'd reached the upper end of the city and he was released into FAO Schwarz, he was nearly out of control. One of us was assigned to chase Micah, while the other parent was in charge of keeping tabs on the other 4 kids that belonged to us.

He ran here, and there, and stopped at the candy store to drool a bit. He rounded corners and raced aisleways. He played with the stuffed animals and watched the puppets. But nothing he did lasted more than 90 seconds, because he was overwhelmed and needed to destress. His destressing looks like ADHD without Ritalin if he doesn't have a movie to sit in front of and Woody to dance on hardwood. We chose not to take Woody into NYC for fear he'd become a lost toy. And there was a complete lack of free movies playing for the kids.

It's only what we expected, of course. We'd just have to step up our vigilant eagle eye mode.

We moved from the toy store to the Apple Store next door. That was a mistake of immense proportions. If we thought the streets of New York were crowded, they were nothing compared to what was going on in Apple. We had to physically elbow our way in and around, and Micah was leading the way. I had no choice but to push and weave my way through the crowd to keep up with him. He zigged and zagged, and made much better time than I did because of his dimunitive height. And then he made an abrupt right turn and beelined to the corner of the store, through the thickest crowd there was. When I finally caught up with him (and thank goodness I found him!) he was moving in on someone's personal space.

Micah was enthralled with the orthodox Jew. So much so, in fact, that he hugged him. And I'm not talking about a I-found-Woody-at-Disney-and-I-knew-all-along-that-he's-real kind of hug. No, I'm talking a it-is-such-an-honor-to-meet-you-and-I'm-awed-at-your-presence kind of hug.

I wonder at what the boy thinks. I wonder a lot.