4/5/08

A beautiful day for a bike ride!

It is beautiful outside today. A bit chilly with the breeze but the sun is out and I haven't seen a single snowflake all day - that, in it of itself, is a miracle!

Dad and Sue stopped by a few hours ago and picked up Zachy for a sleepover. He has been preparing for this since Easter and, as of 6:45pm last night, he was not going because his room was not clean. He did finish it up and was VERY excited. He waited by the window all day until they showed up. At one time Sue called to say they would be here in about an hour and a half and the second that hour and a half was up he kept saying "they should be here by now...they're late...". Too cute.

After they left Andrew and I decided to take his tricycle out and go for a ride (well, he rode, I walked). It took a lot to get him out the door and he HATES his helmet but we made it.

Autistic typically have low muscle tone. They are not known for being star athletes. Andrew is no exception. Last year he wanted to ride his bike but wasn't able to no matter how hard he tried. He is actually at the point in time where a tricycle is too small for him (because he is getting so tall) but there is no way he could handle a two wheeler.

They have been working really hard on this in school during his OT time. Although I have not seen him, I have been told that he is able to bike across the entire gym and they have even started setting up cones for him to maneuver around.

Riding on a gym floor and riding on a paved section that has been hit hard by frost heaves and pot holes is something very different. He cried a lot, he screamed a lot, but he was able to ride that bike from the parking lot across the street to the house (with very little help from mom). All I had to do was give him a little push every once in a while (to get over those bumps in the road) and bribe him with a trip to Dunkin Donuts if he made it (and that was as much for Mommy as it was for him).

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He is so proud of himself. It is really hard work for him. I am incredibly proud of my little man. He makes huge advances every single day - he is so amazing!

Speaking of amazing, I just finished Look Me In the Eye: My life with Asperger's by John Elder Robison. John Elder was diagnosed with Asperger's (a form of autism) in his late 30s. This book is about his life, how he knew that he was different and how he learned to cope long before he had a diagnoses.

If you want to learn more about Asperger's and how "Aspergians" work, think and live I highly recommend this book. If learning about Asperger's is not enough - it is highly entertaining. John Elder is also the older brother of Augusten Burroughs who wrote Running with Scissors and if you read and enjoyed that book I almost guarantee that you will love this one too.

One annoyance: the spell check that blogger.com provides does not recognize Asperger's. Hmmm...that leads me to believe that not enough people know about this condition.

3 comments:

Jessi said...

In that second to last picture, is there a truck coming up behind him!!! or is it parked... Yikes!

He is such a tiny little thing!

Crazy Momma said...

We were actually in a parking lot that had only two cars parked in it. I did take him out on the road to get to the house but I made him stop anytime a car approached.

He IS tiny! This is why he can still ride a tricycle at 6 years old!

Crazy Momma said...

I was going to take him to the basketball courts or the tennis courts in town, but they are all still covered with snow...