Sidewalk Chalk

Few things in life are as simply amazing as a child taking a piece of chalk and drawing to his heart's content on a slab of cement. Not only does this bring the child joy, but if the adult were to do the same, the joy would then be shared and a lovely piece of artwork is created. Alexzander and I are lucky that we have a long stretch of sidewalk by our house, one that we have been given permission to beautify. A long row of letters and number stretch across about four of the slabs, and 1-20 is written on the opposite side. We drew pictures like "baseball" and "flower", wrote the names of the people in our family so he could recognize the names. He picked up every color and smiled as he drew lines and circles, and when he could, he identified the color he was using.

52 colors in the box, and the strip of sidewalk in front of Tony's car looks fabulous. This lead to a two hour nap, many slices of cheese and crackers eaten, and three or four juice pouches drank dry. When I was watching him, I felt that wish grow stronger, the one that is deep inside that is just wanting the thing that he will easily communicate with others with to come out. He has a lot going on in that little head, and I know there are times when he wants to share. There are times he wants to tell me what he wants, what he needs, but gets frustrated because he can't figure out the words.

He gets so excited when he sees things that he knows the word for, and will not calm down until you say the word too. "Butterfly" is his most favorite, and when we went to the flower shop today, he saw wind chimes with a butterfly on it. If only I had more money, I would buy one for him so that he could listen to it chime as the butterfly wings went up and down.

Alexzander starts baseball tomorrow, and once he gets used to that I am going to start taking him to the pool so he gets used to water before he starts swimming lessons. I don't know what that thing will be that he excels at, but I do know that he has the ability to have fun with anything once he gets the hang of it, and that is really something that all of us can look at and learn from. When I think about complaining because of all of the chapters I have to read for class, I remember that he is trying so hard to learn the words so he can start reading himself, because he loves books almost as much as he loves his mommy.

Before I end this post, I just want to put up a link to the Autism Awareness Shop, because I have found some amazing wedding gifts from there and I am excited that a portion of the proceeds benefits autism awareness. There are also different causes on the top tab, so you can choose which store you would like to shop. Give it a look, it is definitely worth your time!

https://www.theautismsite.com/store/site.do;jsessionid=B90EE0EB5D14942819DEA8D8D20407F5.store-b?siteId=346