By Mommy | April 6, 2009 - 1:29 pm
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By Mommy | February 5, 2009 - 11:07 pm
Today was a super day. With the temperatures nearing 70 degrees, we just could NOT stay cooped up in this house. So, after I picked up the little ones from kindergarten, we all headed over to the big park in our new neighborhood.
And what a splendid time we had! For nearly an hour, the park was ours alone, along with one other really cool mom, whom I chatted with for a very long time, and her 3-year-old boy, whom the girls befriended and mothered and pushed around on his little bike-on-a-stick thingy.
While cool mom and I were chatting, lots of other moms and kids began to appear. At one point, one of my girls ran past with a FRIEND FROM HER SCHOOL. This is a first for us! We’ve never gone to our neighborhood school, so we’ve never had neighborhood school friends to bump into at the park. Yay!
The big special moment, though, was when a group of boys approached my son. The mother hen in me immediately started to move closer, so I could hear what was going on. But they weren’t ganging up on him at all - one of the boys shouted out and called him by name, saying, “Hey! Come play with us!” It was one of HIS friends from school. Yes. My boy has SCHOOL FRIENDS. Neurotypical school friends who play with him like he’s completely normal. Friends from his regular, mainstream kindergarten class. And they all just climbed up the slide backwards and hung from the tire swing together and shouted and laughed, and my son just seemed…like a regular kid. It was freakin’ BEAUTIFUL, man. I’ve waited for a magical moment like this since his autism diagnosis three years ago.
I love our new neighborhood.
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By Mommy | September 30, 2008 - 8:01 am
I just posted on my other blog today about my 5-year-old boy playing with Barbies. I wanted to mention it here, specifically because I’m interested in seeing if our experience is similar to what other parents are seeing. I’ve noticed that my son doesn’t fall into specific gender roles, even if we promote it. And, I love it! I love that we have an “excuse” to “allow” our boy to play with whatever toys he chooses. I hate it when people tease boys about playing with dolls or toy kitchens. Why the outrage? Most boys will grow up to be husbands and fathers, and most boys see their own dads cooking or caring for children, soooo…it only seems natural that they would choose to emulate that in their dramatic play. Yet, there still seems to be a stigma associated with little boys in sparkly dressup clothes, playing with dollies, and cooking up plastic food in the Fisher Price kitchen. Even in families like ours, where it’s a houseful of girls and one little boy.
That’s not to say our son doesn’t enjoy pushing a truck all over the kitchen and tearing around the yard on his bike. He does those things too, but he participates in whatever the girls are doing a whole lot more. Parents of boys, I’m curious to know: does/did your son play with “girl” things? And if he did so, did your husband and the other men in his life have a hard time with it?
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By Mommy | August 23, 2008 - 9:22 am
Well. We finished up our first week back at Kindergarten, and the boy did pretty well. He LOVES school so much, it’s always hard on him and the family too whenever he’s off track from school. It was a tough adjustment, getting up at the crack of dawn every day and then having such a LONG day at school, but he was in good spirits most of the week. He did get a couple of really bad blisters on his hands, because he developed a little obsession with the monkeybars and they weren’t able to get him away from them without a major battle. I think it’s always helpful with children, even those on the spectrum, to learn about natural consequences, though. You don’t get off the monkeybars when teacher says; you get big blisters on your hands that HURT.
I also love that our boy’s twin sister looks out for him at school. They play together on the playground during recess, and they eat lunch together in the lunchroom. I love it. I love that our little girl is developing her own identity at school and making friends and loving school, but she’s still including her brother in her day and watching out for him. She’s pretty protective of him, and from what I’ve heard from other parents in our situation (boy/girl twins, boy on the spectrum) this is not at all unusual.
When I picked up Pablo from school yesterday, his teacher said he’d had a pretty rough day, with a lot of ups and downs. She mentioned how refreshing it was to have a student who knows what time out is and why it exists, and she said she only has to bring the chair over and Pablo sits right down and says, “Calm down.” He ought to know what time out is, considering how much time his butt spends on that bottom step! :lol: When we got home last night, he was pretty agitated all evening - getting very frustrated quickly when things weren’t working properly for him, and not wanting to share anything. Just a very hard day and night for the boy, with lots of tears! I think it’s just first-week-back stress. We’re hoping for a relaxing weekend (ha! We’re having a garage sale today, what could be more relaxing than that??) where he can just chill with his sisters. Hopefully we’ll return to school Monday and he’ll be a little refreshed.
As difficult as things are sometimes, it brings me such joy to see him learning, enjoying school, and creating beautiful pictures for the fridge! They must do projects every single day in kindergarten. First week in, and I’ve got a STACK of Pablo & Mallory’s stuff on the counter. I took pictures of Pablo his first week of school in various places - in the classroom, standing with his teacher, in line with Mallory, etc. They cycle in a slideshow on the computer and he gets so happy when he sees them! I love having kids in school!
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By Mommy | August 15, 2008 - 9:12 am
Our son has really been getting into music lately. He loves singing, playing his little keyboard, and now, thanks to my father-in-law, he has his own little guitar. Here’s a really short video clip of him rocking out to Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star:
I love that kid!
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