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Tuesday, May 4, 2010

It's The Little Things 2 : Electric Boo-Ah-Boo !

I have to apologize for the time between posts. I've lost my summer gig at the golf course, or to be more precise, I wasn't asked back to work , and for the last month I've been suffering a bit of an existential crisis. For all my failings the one thing I've always been proud of is that I could work my butt off to help support my family. Plus I really liked the work. I've been a little depressed and I like to have my blog be a place of hope so I haven't written in a while.

On to better things.

My son David, as many of you know, has low-functioning autism. While his attitude is better than anyone I've ever met he can't do a whole lot of the things that we take for granted as parents and as human beings, so every little milestone is *HUGE* to us. Communication through speech is one of those things. David isn't quiet, he can vocalize with the best of 'em. He has a wookie-like noise, a Gamera-like noise and a Paul Stanley like yodel. But...

We got a word out of David... kind of. He says "bubbles". It's actually more like "bubba" and while the "b" consonant sound has always been in his arsenal he uses "bubba" to get us to blow more bubbles which means that he's not just vocalizing. Dude loves bubbles. They have to be real live bubbles though. I tried to get him to watch Lawrence Welk and he didn't even seem to care about the music much less those two dimensional bubbles. His teacher called me the second she heard him say "bubbles" for the first time. We can't get our hopes up that he will ever speak more than a few words because there are consonants that seem impossible for him to handle, but we won't give up hope either.

The other form of communication is rudimentary signing and we got a little of that too. The Boo-Monster signed "more" when he was at school and wanted more food at lunch. They have video footage of this so we know it to be true.

Speaking of lunch he's finally mastered the art of the drinking straw. One of those activities that we might think of as being as easy as breathing. I have realized that it is not. David's been trying for years but now he has it.

I saved the best for last : The other day David put on my shoes and walked around in them and then came to get me to give him a bath. That is as close to neuro-typically imaginative play as he's ever gotten. It blew my mind.

As soon as I figure out how to walk in his shoes, metaphorically speaking, we'll make even more progress.