Hope in the shape of an egg

Do you remember Little-foot and the gang from the animated movie series The Land Before Time? Little-foot and his friends were baby dinosaurs separated from their parents, lost and trying to find their way to the utopia for dinosaurs, The Great Valley. This movie had 2 of Matt's favorite things; dinosaurs and babies. We absolutely had to buy the video tape for the original movie and for each sequel that came after.

Matt was still a wee one himself, between 3-4 years old. He would study his own features in a mirror, look at pictures of himself as a baby, and at some point made the connection that big people come from babies, and that there were people that looked like him.

He made this connection by looking through a book I had on babies - one of those "your baby will be doing (some mile-marker) at this age" book. It was filled with pictures of Gerber-type babies sitting, standing, eating their peas. He would often ask for the book - using his pre-speech gesture, or a simple "baby" and a "gimme" gesture. A few times of me retrieving the text revealed its location and shortly thereafter he would get the book himself. I always assumed he was comparing his face to those on the glossy paper, but now I think there was more to it than that.

As with all videos Matt loved, The Land Before Time was played over and over (and over and over) until everyone in the home knew each line by heart. One of his favorite scenes was Little-foot being born - he hatched from an egg. Ah! Eggs made babies. Matt watched his video, and looked at the baby book almost daily.

One afternoon I found him on his bed with his hands closed gently around a treasure. "What do have, Matt?" I asked. Slowly he open his hands forming a gentle cradle around an egg- yep, an egg. He looked at the egg and softly said, "Baby" as if the word itself could break. The egg from our refrigerator, in his eyes, was the offspring of some baby dinosaur. He cupped the egg and slowly brought his hands together over the top, once again sheltering his egg. It was so cute! Of course, now I had to try and explain to him that a dinosaur was not inside, that we actually broke open eggs on purpose and ate them - just like the scary, mean dinosaurs that chased Little-foot and his friends! I wasn't ready to explain and certainly didn't want him thinking of me as one of the evil, bad guys, so I let him keep it for awhile. I found the egg later, wrapped snuggled in a blanket. I returned it to the fridge.

Each day Matt would retrieve an egg from the refrigerator and take it to his room to cuddle and warm. Each day I would find it and put it back until finally one day I realized I would just have to break it to him. I took an egg from the refrigerator door and had him watch me as I broke it into a bowl. See? No baby. He was confused. There should have been a Little-foot in there. Where was the dinosaur? I explained that this egg was not a dinosaur egg, which were much bigger. I tried to explain that dinosaurs are extinct- gone from the earth, and there were no dinosaur eggs left to hatch. He seem to sadly accept this demonstration and the crude explanation - at least for that particular egg. He sadly went to his room mumbling something about how I had "gotten the wrong eggs".

This is more than a simple story about a boy and his egg. There was more going on here besides Matt relating baby pictures to himself and to the characters in his movie. Sure, he had made the connection that everything living starts out as a baby - and that he was still a "baby" himself, but more importantly he demonstrated concern for his own "baby". He had saved the egg from the cold, cradled it lovingly, warmed it, and kept it safe. He showed empathy for a little lost egg. This all came at a time when Matt seemed so oblivious to the rest of the world, didn't want interaction, and seemed cocooned in an autism blanket. The simple act of taking an egg from the refrigerator showed that was all wrong. Matt did see the world - just not while we were looking. He did want interaction - just didn't know how. And that autism blanket? More a moth eaten old rag!

Matt caring for his unborn dinosaur gave us what we needed most at that time - a glimmer of hope.

Hope . . . in the shape of an egg.