Okay, first, this is a picture of Fraser showing his teeth. If you look closely you can see that his bottom two teeth have come in and, as you can also see, he is very excited about this fact.

Now, on to the main event. Fraser and I had a fairly traumatizing experience today. We went to Walmart to pick up some storage bins so I could pack up his clothes this weekend and while we were there I figured I would get batteries and maybe a toy for Fraser since he was being really good. I had everything in the shopping cart but decided to use the restroom before we left. Fraser was in his car seat (he's still in the seat the doubles as a carrier and snaps into a base that stays in the car) so I carried him into the restroom in that. When we came out I put him, still in his carseat, back into the cart and headed back out into the aisle. Just as we emerged I saw a woman moving toward Fraser. This didn't alarm me, as people often come up and smile and talk to Fraser and he loves that. But instead of smiling or talking the woman suddenly reached out and punched Fraser in the face.

I know you're probably thinking, "Oh my God, that did not really happen." Which is exactly what I thought the first second, the next second I thought "Get away from him!" so I lunged forward and shoved the woman away from the cart so I could stand between her and Fraser. She had already turned away so I shoved her from behind. As she stumbled away I next thought, "Did she have anything in her hand when she hit him?" I turned to Fraser, who looked more shocked than anything, but, on seeing the fear in my face, he burst into hysterical tears. I was at once relieved to see that he didn't have any visible marks on him and insanely angry. I was pretty much ready to punch this woman in the face and then ask how she liked it. When I turned back saying "What the hell did you think you were doing?" I immediately saw my mistake.

She wasn't a woman, she was a girl, probably sixteen or seventeen, and she was clearly mentally disabled. She didn't have any expression on her face when I spoke to her and she didn't answer me. A woman walking down the aisle saw the whole incident and came right up to Fraser asking if he was okay. At this point I was frantically trying to unbuckle the car seat and get him out. He was wearing his snowsuit which makes getting him in and out of the carseat a major ordeal under the best of conditions much less when he and now I are both crying. The girl started to walk away and the woman went after her demanding that she stop and explain herself. Another woman, who turned out to be the girl's caretaker, came out of another aisle and asked what was going on. By this point we had attracted the attention of one of the sales associates who immediately went for the manager.

While the caretaker tried to explain to the other woman that the girl was non-verbal so she couldn't answer the questions the woman was asking her, the associate and the manager arrived. Fraser was starting to calm down but I was pretty much getting more upset by the minute and I really just wanted to get the hell out of there. The manager asked what happened and, luckily for me since I'm not sure I could have put a sentence together, the woman who witnessed the incident explained everything. Then the manager asked me if I wanted him to call the police and I said "No, of course not. I'm sure he'll be fine." The caretaker started to explain again what the girl's condition was and insisted that she had never behaved this way before. She apologized profusely and offered to give me the name of the facility the girl lives in if I felt the need to contact them. I said no, I was sure Fraser would be okay.

The manager then asked the associate to walk my cart to the front of the store and give me everything in it for free. Honestly I was pretty shocked at this offer, and I would have been deeply grateful if he had just told her to let me cut to the front of a checkout line so I could get out of there as quickly as possible. On the way to the front of the store the associate grabbed a blanket with the characters from Cars on it and tossed it in the cart saying "Here, he should have this, we'll give him this too." The associate told the woman at the register to use some special code to ring me through which is apparently a code they use for people who have had traumatic experiences in the store. I say this because, even though the associate didn't say anything to the woman checking me out about what happened, when she was done the woman said "I'm so sorry for whatever bad experience you had." "Thank you," I replied, "It certainly wasn't your fault." "Oh no," she said, "But it happened in my store, so I'm sorry."

We left and I cried pretty much the entire drive home, partly for reasons I understand, and partly for reasons I don't. I was at once very relieved that Fraser wasn't hurt, and terrified when I thought about how much worse it could have been if the girl had really wanted to hurt him. I was both angry at myself for not being quicker and intercepting the girl before she was able to hit Fraser and horrified that I had physically attacked a mentally disabled person who I now believe did not intend to harm Fraser. I was sad when I thought that I won't ever be as comfortable or secure taking Fraser into a public place as I have been, and heartbroken to think that this experience might make Fraser wary of strangers when he has always loved people so much. I was also deeply impressed by the response of the Walmart employees who were so thoughtful and attentive. It's disappointing to me that I should find such basic human compassion and customer service so amazing, but I did.

All in all it was a very traumatizing day. And now I feel spent physically and emotionally. Since I don't think I can bear to rethink this incident one more time, I think the only thing to do now is have a nice big glass of wine and call it a night.