Sometimes it's good to leave your life open to surprise. That sounds simple, but it takes quiet faith and courage to just be in the moment without expectation. That's not simple at all.

Yesterday morning my son asked to go to Toys R Us to spend some of his Christmas money. He looked at his usual favorite electronic things, but then he spent a long time in the aisle of FAO stuffed animals.

My son loves animals in theory, but being a person with autism with huge sensory challenges, real animals can be overwhelming. He loves nonfiction books about animals, but he's never expressed any interest in stuffed animals. Ever. Not that we didn't buy them when he was young, but he never cared about them.

So it was a complete surprise that he seemed so taken with these. "You have some extra Christmas money," I finally told him. "So if you want one, you can choose one." He picked up each kind and put it back, and then we went to another part of the store. I thought that was the end of the matter, but just before we were done shopping, he came back and took one stuffed animal off the shelf and handed it to me as a firm decision.

"I like your leopard," I told him as we walked to the car with it.

"It's a cheetah," he said matter-of-factly. Those of you who love someone with autism know there's no point in arguing, because they KNOW the things they love. I have zero doubt that it is indeed a cheetah.

"Does your cheetah have a name?" I asked.

"A name?"

"Yeah, lots of times when people get a stuffed animal, they name it."

"What's the name?"

"I don't know," I said. "You get to choose. How about Henry?"

"Don't be ridiculous," he said, which is one of his movie phrases. He always means the emotion behind the words, but out of context from the movie, the phrases are overly dramatic to the situation. I try not to laugh, because he's using them as communication and he's a bit sensitive about being laughed at, but I couldn't help it. I'm walking through the Toy R Us parking lot carrying a huge cheetah with my 6 foot tall adult son with autism. I think we passed "ridiculous" a while ago.

"Okay, maybe Spot? Since he has spots?" I said.

"Yes."

So Spot the Cheetah came home with us. And it was one of those moments where the world changes, just a little bit, because we let it. A surprise to us all.