Last Sunday, both our volunteers cancelled their sessions. We hate it every time it happens. But this time, we said, what the heck! It's good for us... because it allows us to focus our energies on playing with the hero of the program, instead of giving feedback and orchestrating the whole show of one of them coming before the other goes home, etc.
Baba (which means Dad, but feels more close:-) went in with a game, but Aditya asked to build the RIDE with his blocks first. We did that for about 15 minutes when Baba invited Aditya again to play the new game he had brought. This time, Aditya was game with the idea!
We began by sticking little squares of paper on the wall, numbered 1 to 6. Baba and Aditya would then play "throw and catch" until one of them dropped it. Every catch would add a half point to their score. When one of them dropped it, that would be the score of their team... say they dropped the ball after 4 throws, their score would be 2. If so they would go and take off the square numbered 2, turn it around and provide "expert advice" on the question noted.
(Questions were designed around Aditya's areas of expertise, such as, if his RIDE starts looking old and needs a new paint, what color might he choose to paint it with?)
We are aware that he has been having difficulty catching the ball (although he is really good at throwing the ball now). As is usual in a Son Rise program session, when motivated he began trying to do what he was not supposed to do... catch the ball. He mostly did not catch anything more difficult than a straight throw in his lap. However in one case, he did latch on to the (soft) ball that had struck his head and then fallen into the air. Hurray!!
After playing this game for 20 minutes or so, he asked to play Soccer.
We played much longer than we do on weekday mornings. Aditya scored 11 goals while I did 10. At this point, we learnt that our volunteer was not going to make it! Usually, a big deal for him, but today he seemed totally okay, as I offered to continue playing soccer! We did continue for another 10 minutes, and totally loved it. Aditya continued not only to kick the ball much better, he "ran around" the room when he scored a goal, imitating what he saw in a goal scoring youtube video:-)
The best part of the session came in the end where he asked to play Monopoly. For the first time, we played for over an hour, after which we went out to tell Aai (Mom) that we intended to play for another 15 minutes!
While we played we ran into some never-before scenarios like Aditya running low on cash, and therefore letting go the idea of buying new property:-) Once he also ran so low that he agreed to sell "something" he had. He had to pay $100 in rent, and had about $60 with him. To my great surprise, he picked the cheapest property (Baltic Avenue, for $60) to sell to me! Soon running into a situation where he had to pay $100 rent again to me, he now opted for a $400 property, as if to get rid of this problem once and for all! Finally, we laughed our hearts out when we realized we were preferring to go to jail than to land in a place where we had to pay $100 in rent to the other player. That moment was beyond what I could have asked for from that Sunday!
In the end... Aditya said "I don't want to stop playing". But then agreed to stop knowing that it was time to have lunch!
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