"Go Andrew"

Our lives are all about praise. We praise just about everything Andrew does. Andrew asks for something with words, we cheer when we give it to him. Andrew finds a way to do something he wants, we praise him for it. We are always cheering at our house, it's really a lot of fun.

One of the things I do for Andrew when he is particularly verbal or patient is my "go Andrew" cheer. I pump my arms above my head, bounce on my heels and say "Go Andrew. Go Andrew, Go, go, go Andrew go". I'm sure it has to be hilarious to watch, and Andrew just eats it up. He grins and laughs, and likes to bend down and watch my toes go up and down while I do this cheer.

Well last night he earned a "go Andrew" cheer. So once I'm done, I hear his little voice mimicing mine, saying "go Andrew, go Andrew, go go go Andrew go". It was soooo adorable. :) This morning he did it a few more times. This is obviously going to become a frequent cheer at my house . . . . hehe. :)

Makeshift Slide

So Andrew loves to slide. We're not talking like here, or even enjoys tremendously. We're talking LOVES!! I have a chair, a media chair. It's one of those that is really low to the floor, looks slightly like a banana from the side, and has a place to plug things in so the sound is surrounding you. There's a speaker in the back of it, and one on each side near the top. This thing is made for movies and console games.

So anyway, one day I was cleaning out the living room closet, and as this sits in front of the closet I chose to just flip it over to give me more room to clean. Andrew noticed that when flipped over, it looks just precisely like a small children's slide (if you discount the big speaker in the "slide" portion of it). So he used it a few times as a slide, and I didn't mind really. I don't plug much into it, so I'm not so concerned about the speakers anyway.

Well now it's become Andrew's new "slide". Just this morning he informed me "I want slide" while pointing at it. Being the easygoing mom I am, I promptly turned it over and let Andrew slide. :) Probably the most expensive household slide in existance, but hey, he's a happy child. :)

Golfing, Andrew Style

Oh what a happy evening we had!! For those who don't know Autism well, one of the many problmes that Andrew is likely to face is the inability to engage in pretend play. Imagining things is likely to be tremendously difficult for him, as is "play" in general. He even has a program in school about learning to play appropriately with toys and games. So last night's activity is all the more sweet because of it.

Andrew was playing in his room, as far as I knew, on the computer. It was very early evening, and unwinding was happening at our house, with me in the recliner reading a book (or trying to). One of Andrew's interruptions came with him demanding what sounded to me like "blue" though when I would try to repeat that back to him it wasn't what he wanted at all. After a few attempts I asked him to show me, and he took me to the kitched to the silverware drawer. I figured out he had been trying to say "spoon" which I realize sounds nothing like blue, unless you're Andrew. :)

So I got a spoon out for him, and followed him into his room to see what he was going to do with the spoon. This caused me a TON of amusement. Do you know those super soft pillows that come in random shapes? They're the ones that feel like they are filled with microfill (and they likely are) and are just wonderful. Well Andrew has one shaped like a soccer ball, larger than his head, and very soft. So I find him trying to use the spoon to hit the soccer ball pillow around his room. Then I look over on his computer screen and see that he has his Bob the Builder game up, and it's at the golf section of the game. So all i can figure out is that he's trying to imitate Bob's golfing with a spoon and a pillow. It was tremendously cute!! :)