He has begun to play with kids at school!

We are so excited! Almost 40 days into his school year,  Aditya is not just going to school,  he is totally present at school, taking it all in, as well as CONTRIBUTING!

This morning he came to us and began the day by announcing the different kinds of "stretches" he has learnt about at PE. Forward lunges, sit ups, cherry picking, you name it! And he was fully interactive, asking us.... do you know what "cherry picking" is... then showing it to us! Oh... what a way to begin the day!

We remember that less than a year ago he would begin the day by "talking" extensively... but that talking was on his own terms about his interests like various items in a restaurant's take away menu... or different kinds of brass instruments and their countries of origins :)

Within 10 minutes, he had moved on to asking what different punctuation and quotation marks we knew, describing "juicy" words and "regular" words in English, and commented that "regular" was not a "juicy word". Him playing with words is no longer news here. He comes up with a few "jokes" by twisting words and playing with two languages (English and Marathi) regularly. We are SO grateful for this! How hard he has worked to come so far from the diagnosis of cognitive and speech delay!

One more HUGE update.  (The title of this post is a give-away though!)

He played a pretend play game with two girls-- one from his class and one not!  They formed a game on the fly where they were birds going out to get food and Aditya was guarding the nest.  Apparently, they agreed to play the game again the next day.

However, when he approached her the next day to carry on the same game, she told him that she could not. He seemed a little upset when he narrated this to me, but said that he would try the next day again. The next day, instead of playing with her, he went and played something else with a couple of boys in his class! He went and stood there, and they gave him a role: he was the referee in a game of Foursquare !

And then today, he played Frisbee with a few more boys. When he was "playing with" them, he did not seem to figure out everything that was going on.  BUT HE TRIED, and he continued to do it. At one point, he threw the Frisbee to catch all by himself but could not make it in time before the Frisbee would land.  Another boy picked it up, and threw it back to him!

Games are played, defined, re-defined on the playground exactly like that.  What's really great about Aditya doing it is... the kids seem to accept him in the "tribe"!  They seem to respond to him doing his bit!

Something I found really funny was a conversation between him and his sister regarding a girl from his Kinder class, who broke her arm last weekend. They talked about how and where they got "the news" and then about the girl who actually told Aditya this. They were giggling, joking and gossiping about other kids and the happenings around them like there was no end! Seriously, does this child even know that he was not supposed to be taking such an interest in other people and their lives? (Hey buddy, you have autism! :)

Oh, and one last thing... which is really the best thing.

When he comes home these days, he has that mischievous and victorious look on his face.  "I have a news" he announces, and then tells us which kids he played with today.  He is sure to follow with the question, "Do you think that was STAGE 5"?

"That was not just stage 5, Aditya, that was being a terrific friend!" we reply!

PS: We do Son-Rise after school and on the weekends, with regular feedback, training and team meetings ... we are not yet done, we will continue till he overcomes all his challenges. Autism, here we come!