Birthday Pie and Soccer Fun

Our Saturday was super fun.  Bobby's respite worker, Cynthia, came over in the late morning so Bob and I got out of the house for a few hours and went out for a nice lunch to celebrate Bob's birthday.  I didn't have much planned because I am planning to have a group birthday party in a couple of weeks for the many September birthdays that are in our family.

When I asked him what type of cake that he would like to have for his birthday, he opted for a blackberry cobbler.  I opted to purchase vs. bake.  I know, I always bake birthday cakes, but while we were out I saw the razleberry pie and decided to save some time.  I think that I'll pin this super easy mom tip to Pinterest!!  If you have followed this blog for a while, you already know that one of Bobby's favorite things to do is blow out birthday candles.  So Mommy has to go a little candle crazy.

He just gets so ridiculously excited over a dessert in flames!!  WAIT....WAIT....WAIT.....

Mommy wants to turn it around and get Bobby and Daddy standing together.....too late, he just can't help himself!

 I got the pie turned around and Daddy got beside Bobby, but the candles were half out.

Daddy to the rescue to try to let Mommy get her picture.  Poor man has been with me long enough to know, "when Mom isn't happy...."

Mom, I promise that I'll let you get the picture this time.....

Sorry Mom, but these candles are just so magical that I have to blow them out NOW!!!!!!

However, after this time, the crowd (Mommy, Daddy, Grandma Carolyn, Mimi and Aunt Dianna) erupted in cheer.  Bobby blew out all of the candles but one with just one blow!!!  Extra special because learning to blow/suck was such a hard skill for Bobby to acquire and a skill in which he was extremely delayed.  So we tried 3 more times to see if he could get them all out in one blow, but with the amount of smoke lingering in the air and the amount of wax on top of the pie, we had to give in the towel.

 Happy Birthday Daddy!!!!!

After the pizza (fries for Bobby), popcorn, pie and ice cream were eaten, Bobby started with, "ride in car.....ride in car.....ride in car!!"  So we all obliged and got into two cars because Zoi wanted to go too. Our destination, the Miracle Field so that we could practice kicking a soccer ball with Bobby. One major problem, Bobby has thrown every ball that we own down the hill, they are all in the woods and Daddy finds them everywhere when he mows the grass and in the fall and winter when the grass is all dormant.  The only ball that we could find was a red, nubby sensory ball.  It will have to do.

What a beautiful evening.  Perfect for soccer!!  First, lets get the goals out...

Bobby has to take a minute and run back and forth in front of the net to check it out...

This worked out so much better than the actual soccer practice that Bobby had earlier this week.  We demonstrated kicking a ball into the net for him, and there were 4 adults assisting him in kicking the ball into the net for himself.

When he successfully kicked the ball into the net the crowd went wild and Bobby loved it!  He cheered for himself too...

Kicking on his own...

Random pictures of the soccer fun....

We all had such a great time.  I only had the camera out for a couple of minutes total and I have to tell you a little secret...Bob was playing goalie for me while I tried to kick the ball past him and I was kicking his butt!!!  I had some horrible kicks, but whizzed a few right by the birthday boy!!  Yay me!

This is what Bobby needs right now in learning soccer. He got a lot out of our family practice.  The way that his soccer team is set up he has 2 practices and then 4 games.  All of the games are against the same team but he isn't going to be learn during these games.  Bobby needs a lot of repetition.  So autism moms, here's what I'm thinking.....lets get the kids together once a week and take them out on the field and have our own soccer practice.  Our kids are all the same age, so we won't be in the way of the big kids who already know these basic skills.  Sibling can come too and it would be family fun. Our kids already know each other and can take turns over and over on just basic skills....kicking to each other, kicking into the net, etc.  If anyone else is interested, I'll call Stepping Stones and see when is a good time for us to use the field.

See-sawing with Bobby

Bobby and I took Zoi to visit with Sonny and Joey since she will be having a sleepover with them in the near future.  While the kids were all running around in their front yard, the boys decided that they wanted to go to the park and play.  Taking 3 kids (2 with autism) and a dog to the park....humm, our options were pretty limited, we definitely needed a fence.  We were off to the school playground to play!!

We have had issues with Bobby NOT wanting to play on his school playground after school hours. Sometimes he even refuses to get out of the car, but we decided to give it the old college try anyway. We pulled up to the school, he got right out and ran right to the gate and into the playground area.  He immediately went over to the see-saw, sat down and had a great time!!

Then I remembered Miss Kim telling me that this is Bobby's favorite thing to do on the playground and often kids will line up and take turns playing on the see-saw with him. So, we took our turns too!

First up, Joey....

Sonny played on the swings....

Zoi had fun exploring the playground...

Shelly was taking her turn and Sonny decided to come over too...

Sonny opted not to take a turn on the see-saw, he went over to the monkey bars and gave it a try....

 Oops, he fell off....

He's fine!  He didn't try anymore.

My turn to see-saw....

The boys ran around just a little more before it was time to go home....

Soccer Star

I was excited when I got the last flier from Stepping Stones, which is a local agency that provides recreational activities for people with disabilities.  For the first time I saw soccer listed as one of the activities.  This seemed like a much better fit for Bobby than baseball since there is more running around.  So I signed him up for his first organized sporting activity.  Our life is such that there is no way of asking, "Hey Bobby, would you like to try playing soccer, baseball....?"  I just have to decide for him and take him along for the ride.

Bobby has never seen a soccer game.  We don't have a soccer ball at home.  If he has ever had any introduction to soccer, it would have had to occurred at school.  So our expectation of how soccer practice was going to go was extremely low.

Hey Bobby, rule number one of all soccer stars....you have to wear shoes!!!

When he got to the Miracle Field, which is a hard surface baseball field that is wheelchair and walker accessible, he went right into the field and started running around.  Yay, hurdle one is completed!  This same time last year Bobby would have probably refused to go in with this many people.  However, he immediately took his shoes off.  Oh Bobby!!!  He wasn't too interested in the group stretching and getting to know each other activities.  We had to keep bringing him back to the group.

When it was time to practice kicking the ball back and forth with a partner, Bobby did a little better when he was further away from the group.  He stayed in the dugout and kicked the ball to Daddy, just like when we are at home and Bobby stands in the garage and kicks a ball to Daddy standing in the driveway.

He did go out onto the field and kick the ball around with Jenny, a Stepping Stones staffer, for a couple of minutes.

He also spent time really watching the other players and trying to figure out what the heck this was all about!!

He then went to the dugout and sat down.  He was finished for the day.

We stayed for about 25 minutes of the hour long soccer practice.  Funny thing about this soccer team.  It is made up of "kids" ages 8-18.  Some of the older boys were so excited to be there and announced that they were "really good" at soccer.  Will Bobby be announcing the same thing when he is 18? Only time will tell.  For now, we will work on staying a little longer at each practice.  

A Boo Boo and Walking Dogs

Nothing much going on in Bobby's World lately.  He has adjusted well to the 3rd Grade and is happily going off to school every day.  I haven't really taken many pictures of him in the past week and a half because he.....well, I'm not 100% sure what he did but I do know that the coffee table was involved.  I heard a big bang and then immediately heard Bobby screaming crying, which he never does, so I knew that he was hurt.

A huge goose egg appeared on his forehead.  The swelling stayed for a couple of days and moved down between his eyes.  Poor boy looked a little freakish.  As the swelling went away, two black eyes appeared and remained for many days.  I said, multiple times, "I swear, we don't beat him!!"  I took pictures of the black eyes, but they don't look even close as bad as they did in person.

We stayed around the house a whole bunch during the week, other than school and therapy, so I didn't have to explain my child having two black eyes to everyone.  So here are a couple of random pictures that I took while he stayed home....

 Yeah, I took more pictures of Zoi than of Bobby during this time....

 My friend Noelle and I started walking in the mornings on the Decker's Creek Rail Trail.  We felt guilty when we passed the dog park that was empty every time we walked by, so we decided that we would take our dogs with us on our daily walks.  Zoi was super, duper excited to get in the car with us to take Bobby to school.  She couldn't even control her excitement when got out of the car and her friend Ellie was there and we were all going to walk together!!!  Zoi and Ellie were thrilled and wanted to explore everything when the walk started.  However, by the time that we walked our mile and a half to get to the dog park.....poor Zoi was exhausted!!!  Ellie is only one year old and still had a lot of energy and wanted Zoi to run around the fenced dog park with her, but Zoi needed to rest!!!

We let her rest for a half hour and she perked up a little....

We made our mile and a half walk back to the car and both of the dogs walked great.  As soon as we got home and I brought Zoi into the house she went straight over to the air conditioner vent and laid down.  She stayed there for the next few hours and slept.  She finally got up and moved over to Bobby's bean bag...

She slept until 5:00 pm and finally got up and had a normal evening.  She did much better the next walk and actually moved around the dog park and played a little and didn't pass out for the rest of the day when she got home.  This morning she was NOT happy with me when she didn't get to go with us.  After all, Bobby had his back pack on and he was obviously going to school.  Sorry Zoi, I had to go to the DVM, definitely not a dog friendly place.

Bobby finally got back into the swimming pool this weekend, he hasn't been in the pool for weeks. I grabbed the camera and got some pictures of him before we closed the pool this weekend.

Ahhhh, the long weekend is over, my DMV errand is complete, Bobby's black eyes are almost gone and I have finished another blog posting.