An 8 Year Old Boy

Not sure if the death of an 8 year old boy at the Boston Marathon explosion yesterday is weighing more on my heart because I too have an 8 year old boy, but...  I'm not that talented of a wordsmith to put my feelings about the whole tragedy into print.  However, I was watching my 8 year old boy play with his toys this morning and I was so much more thankful for him and for one of the extremely few times in his life, I was a little thankful for his autism.  He is going on with his life as though nothing in our world has happened.  Playing like he does every morning, eating his same breakfast and going through his normal routine to get ready for school.  Everything is Bobby's World has remained unchanged by the rest of the world.

Yesterday evening Bob and I sat outside and watched Bobby play like we have every evening for the past week.  I have been looking for some views of nature to frame as we redecorate our home and I was taken with last night's sunset.

Our yard is finally developing some pretty color...

Sunday afternoon Grandma Carolyn came over for a visit and we took Bobby to Mylan Park to play...

Here are a couple more random pictures of my 8 year old boy playing this past weekend, enjoying nature...

There has been an AMAZING, positive shift going on with Bobby.  He has been showing a new behavior over the past few months or so at school and it is shifting to home.  I give a great deal of the credit for this behavior to a couple of 3rd grade girls, one in particular, at Bobby's school.  I wrote about the one girl in a post a few months ago titled "Playground Heart Throb..."
http://cherismith.blogspot.com/2013/01/playground-heart-throb.html

Bobby has begun to enjoy playing with other children.  For his whole life, we have been used to Bobby not really having an interest in other children.  He has never engaged other kids, but he will try to get adults to play with him, especially jump in the trampoline.  Now that he is getting older, so are his peers who are more understanding of his "quirks" and are becoming instrumental to his socialization issues.  His teacher is reporting that Bobby is running off with the kids at recess and playing.  She has had to be right by his side over the past few years to make sure that he was safe and didn't escape and now she has been able to just let him go off with the others.

At home for 5 days in a row, Bobby has been playing in the trampoline with one of our neighbor kids every night.  Bob and I are over the moon that Bobby is playing with another child.  Here they are running down the hill to the trampoline together...

Zoi is such a good watchdog...