"Don't draw... I think I get it."

This happened over the weekend when Aditya was playing with his Son Rise volunteer friend Arjun.

Aditya has had a challenge flowing with physical or even "on your feet" activities for almost two years.   He oftentimes decides to stop playing and starts asking deep philosophical "how would you feel" questions that the other person is usually not interested in answering during that moment of play. 

But on this last Sunday... it was Arjun who took a 1 second break from their pretend play game of a cross country road trip in order to explain a concept on the easel. 

"I think I get it", quickly said Aditya, suggesting to Arjun that they do not waste time drawing, and instead move on with their exciting journey to their next destination!!! Woo Hoo!

A minute later, he asked Arjun to put the car in the "drive" mode. When Arjun misunderstood and began to drive the car, he HURRIED to TAP Arjun ON HIS HANDS thereby asking Arjun to stop doing that, and then used words to say, "No, just put it in the drive mode".

Aditya was using his body to communicate!  Woo-Hoo!

A little later, when they reached an imaginary car shop, he decided to pull the foam roll that was lying around on the floor, and started rotating it and calling it a tire making machine!  Did I already say it... WOO HOO!!!

Hot off the press

Lots of stories to share, tons to write, plenty to do .. A quick update is what I decided.

Yesterday I went for a lunch date with my husband, close to his workplace, about a 40 minute drive away from home. After lunch, I left to pick up the kids from school, with more than enough time for the drive back. But there was accident on the freeway and traffic had come to a standstill. I called up a parent from Shreya's class and asked her to pick up the kids and wait at the playground. I expected Aditya to be upset and ask me tons of questions. But when I arrived about 30 minutes later, I saw him sitting next to the parent and giggling while a little toddler ran around trying to catch a piece of trash flying around. As I approached him, he smiled and waved, then asked, "Why are you late?" I told him that I was stuck in traffic on  101 (the freeway)
"101? What were you doing there?"
"I had gone to meet your dad over lunch."
"All the way to San Mateo?"
"Yes!"
He shook his head (I think, in disbelief) and said "Ok! Now can we go home?"
I was amazed how calm he was when he got to know that I had gone away while he was at school!

Seen today when I went to aid in his class.. Can you make out which child there has autism?

I will be heading to ATCA this weekend for New Frontiers so we can take our program to the next level! We had a casual chat  about it over lunch on Sunday, wrote to Brian on Monday and finalized on Tuesday! Ciao!