To Each His Own

During our last little family holiday, I came across this comic strip in the newspaper. Since these are the days when we can make digital copies of everything, there was no need to clip it out, though in hindsight, maybe I should have done so and pasted it into Little A's baby book.

My son will be three in six weeks, and he has yet to begin speaking properly. He's continuing to make progress with Occupational Therapy, but we are still waiting for him to start talking.

The comic strip made me realize how much we judge people based on what is considered to be "the norm". What is "the norm", anyway? And who invented it? Who said that man couldn't be an island when and if he chose to, for certain periods of time?

Bill Watterson's Calvin and Hobbes strips are so clever that there was even a philosophy teacher who did a short course on them every year at the university I attended. I salute people like Watterson, who dare to question what others set as the way to do things. Naturally, I wish for my son to experience the same things his father and I did, but I also realize we do not fully comprehend that in his own way, his experiences may be fulfilling enough. He has his joys and his frustrations, as do we all, and perhaps, for now, that is enough.