Thursday, September 27, 2012

Playground Moments

Today is a beautiful, warm fall day so I decided to venture out with Luke and Kate to the local playground.  Luke is very social...which is great.  When you have a child with special needs, all the traits that make a child neuro-typical, (I'm not a fan of the word "normal"), are a true pleasure to see as they develop.  It's like a giant sigh and a big weight off our shoulders when little ones hit certain milestones.... a check on our mental checklist.  Eye contact, check. Pointing, check.  Talking, check.  Joint attention, check.  Pretend play, check.  Engages other children, check. etc, etc.

So, anyway......there were 5 or 6 other children that came and went during the hour we spent at the playground.  Luke mostly played with one particular boy that was 4.  Luke did a good job sharing his trucks, which was nice to see.  Luke's attention span is not as developed as his playground friend, though.  When the little guy suggested a game of tag, Luke would run after him for 30 seconds before another piece of playground equipment caught his eye!


Luke said "Hi!" to everyone!  Luke is super friendly.  I think he overwhelms the shy kids.  Two little girls were shy and didn't want to say "hi" back....so Luke followed them around for a while trying to get their attention.  So funny.



I barely got Luke to stand still long enough to take this pic coming off the twisty slide!

Of course, being 3 and absorbing everything he hears, both good and bad, has its challenges.  A few minutes before I was ready to leave, Luke stood up and called out in a very matter-of-fact voice, "What's wrong with you people?"  Just great...wonder what tv show he got that from that his older siblings were watching?  Thankfully, there was only one little boy and his dad left at that point.  I told Luke that wasn't a nice thing to say.  He smiled and said, "OK, Mom."  Gotta love humility!?!


Kate wanted to crawl around but she kept trying to eat the wood chips.  We spent some time on the swings, which she loved:)

It was nice to spend some time in the sunshine.