Finding the Answer....

Last summer I was standing at my sliding glass
door looking out into my backyard when I spotted
a lemon yellow, very out of the ordinary bird
at the top of my plum tree.

I stood in awe gazing from inside my house at the
beautiful birds (there was actually a pair of them).

I was torn to run and get my camera yet did not
want to miss one second of seeing them with my
eyes.

Do I run?

What if I run to get the camera and the birds
fly off?

Gazing at the birds sitting on branches in the
plum tree, primping...then moving to other
branches was amazing.

And I was alone with nobody to tell or say...

'Hey look at those YELLOW birds in the plum tree.

'Have you ever seen a bird like it?'

Ohhhh, I needed a picture.

So off I RAN to the other room to grab my camera
out of the drawer...............

running back to my perch at the sliding glass door.

Ahhh, there they were.

Two yellow birds complete with red heads and
black wings.

STILL IN MY PLUM TREE.

I had time to snap about three quick pictures
through the glass door (not daring to open the
door lest I scare the birds off).

Then like butterflies in flight...the pair of
lemon beauties floated off through the sky out
of my sight.

I wondered for days what kind of birds they were.

I was on a mission.

I searched the internet.

I talked about the birds and told my family all
about them.

Unfortunately, I could not figure out what kind
of birds they were.

Eventually I stopped trying and no longer thought
about it.

That was a year ago.

Last week my sister came over for a visit and she
gave me a surprise gift certificate to a favorite
store of ours.

I was really looking forward to using the gift
certificate and wondered what I could buy with it.

So later that night I went online and looked
up the store.

The store website came up but before I could
browse through more than a few clicks I saw a
picture of a yellow bird SO SIMILAR to the pair
of birds in my plum tree last year.

The excitement began!!

I just had to explore it more so I clicked on the
picture of the bird. Upon a closer view it looked
nearly the same but it didn't have a red head.

I kept clicking on the other pictures of yellow
birds.....because now that I had gotten so close
I was determined to find out what kind of bird
was in my backyard.

Then there it was!

I found it!!

The lucky lemon yellow beauty appeared before my
eyes and finally

(after one year)

I had an answer:

The bird was a Western Tanager:



Now you may wonder why I am posting this story on
the ACC blog but I assure you there is a message
here.

After having finally found the name of the exquisite,
unusual yellow birds that I was privileged to see in
my own backyard, I realized how similar it is to
finding ways to teach my child, Matthew, who has ACC.

There are times when I have tried and tried to figure
out how to teach Matthew something but no matter
how much I try the answer doesn't come.

But after I put the goal on the backburner and
move on to other things, when I least expect it,
(often months or more later) and much to my surprise
I realize that he learned the very thing that I
had been trying to teach him earlier.

We had simply stumbled upon the teaching method
without even trying while doing other things.

It just appeared as easily as can be and flowed like
a river.

Of course we parents of kids who have Agenesis of
the Corpus Callosum realize that there is a big
variety of scenarios for how to teach our kids the
MANY things that they are working on learning.

I am convinced though that sometimes there are
those times when we simply put it on the backburner,
move on to the next thing and let the natural flow
of life and learning take place.