Saturday, May 29, 2004

Okay, time for a little parental bragging. As is true of many autistic kids, my boys are obsessed with water. My Youngest Son also is obsessed with fish. He has watched the fish at the local aquarium for many hours in the past few weeks, and last week at the beach he was imitating other children as they let themselves be washed ashore by the surf.

Yesterday, I noticed YS putting himself underwater in the backyard swimming pool and holding his breath for as long as he could. Our pool is about 2.5 feet deep, so he can float in it for a while. He's very nearly neutrally buoyant, something I envy. Anyway, he was doing some floating today. Then he started pushing himself off the side and bottom of the pool. Then he started using his hands and feet to propel himself in the water. Not much, but I saw a rudimentary stroke or two. Sua sponte swimming lessons! Very, very cool, and a proud moment for yours truly.

In other news, Older Son got up the courage last night and this morning to use a regular swing at the park instead of a handicapped one. He used to go on regular swings routinely, until he fell off of one and went splat into a gigantic mud puddle a couple of years ago.

We're planning to hit the beach tomorrow. It'll probably be in Mississippi; our last drive to the Alabama coast with the boys was a complete fiasco. Mississippi is much closer, so I won't be pissed or depressed if things don't go well.

4 comments:

Ann said...

DH and Older Son are heading for NY and Boston tomorrow, so the little boy and I will be home by ourselves. Guess where I'm not going! Have a great day at the beach. I'm going to do homework. Maybe some grocery shopping. Or maybe we'll go see Shrek II.

Tomorrow should be a great beach day.

That's cool about YS teaching himself to swim. Maybe there are some kinds of lessons available?

doug said...

GREAT news Randy, have fun at the beach!

Randy said...

The beach went pretty well. It was windy out, which made the water quite choppy. The boys loved it. Older Son put an abrupt end to the festivities when he tried to walk down a gated pier. D.W. and I had to trust Y.S.'s judgment in the water long enough to run onto the pier to get O.S. down. O.S. was in a snit all the way back to the car. Good thing there's a McDonald's across the street. Later this afternoon, we raced a train from the Mississippi line through town and across Lake Pontchartrain. We also went to the neighborhood park and the boys played in the backyard pool some more.

doug said...

Glad it was a success Randy, thank corporate America for MickyD's. Close one with OS eh, I can imagine the pucker factor.