Writing to friends

Amber, I hope the mini-vacation was nice. Was LegoLand worth it? We were thinking about driving down in February, since they are having a day for the "Adult Fans of Lego" group (John's thing), and it should be relatively empty, one would hope.

We are all finally getting over the flu from the past few days - poor Chance had the worst case (103.5 temperature), but we've all been under the weather. We did manage to take him to the Lawrence Hall of Science for the last day of the roller coaster exhibit, so he was happy with that. We're getting back into homeschooling, amid all of the organization efforts (Finally moving all kid-related items out of my mom's room into the back room, yech! But now all of their art stuff is right next to the kitchen, so they will enjoy haivng something to do while dinner is being made. Otherwise they are both still on a Lego
kick, along with Knex, which has been ongoing since we returned home.

I did pick up the Wired issue with the autism/Asperger's article, and found it pretty interesting. I am still at an impasse with Chance, since he fits some of the criteria, but does not have some of the hallmarks, like insisting on playing alone for the majority of the time (he and Jack play with each other a lot), and not wanting social contact. He
does want social contact, and in fact is almost desperate for a friend, but he just doesn't know how to go about it. An example in point: on New year's Day, we went to a brunch given every year by an old work friend. He played with my friend's son's Knex, played on the piano and ate a LOT. He pretty much ignored the younger kids there, but was interested in the older kids (although they went outside for most of the party). As we were leaving, he asked a 7-8 year old boy named Justin (who happened to be getting ready to leave in the foyer at the same time as we were) if he would be his friend. Justin, being a very sweet kid, said, "sure". So then Chance spent the next 5 minutes telling Justin and his mom where we lived, a description of our house, and even directions on how to get there. Justin's mom thought he was very cute, but didn't understand Chance was being completely serious. Anyway, he talked about Justin all the way home, but I didn't think too much of it. Yesterday, on our way to the Lawrence Hall of Science, he says in the car, "Why hasn't my friend Justin come over to play with me yet?" My jaw just dropped, and I had to explain, "Well, Justin can't read your mind honey, he doesn't know that you want him to come over. making friends takes a lot of work, not just saying "Hi", and telling him where you live". I was ready to go on and on (a bad habit), but he just asked me to put the music back on.

It just sounds like he is clueless about the ways of the world, but I tell you, he has never demonstrated such a naviete about how the world works when it comes to non-social interactions. The only thing keeping from tearing my hair out in my quest for finding him like-minded kids is that I found a group for all ages at a local space center that meets
every Friday night and works on building their own telescopes, and a local Lego group that might have kids come to the monthly meetings. I feel like taking out an ad that says "Playgroup for Nerds inTraining - Calling all Knex, Space, Lego, and Electricity Fanatics"! If we can just meet one kid at this telescope meeting, life will be so much better for him. I would consider putting him into a Parks and Rec. "Kiddie Kollege" class again, but he is at the upper age limit, and the last time we did it, it was a failure. Should I be homeschooling him? It isn't as though he doesn't have the opportunity to meet other kids, like the ones in Campfire - but the othe rkids just haven't clicked (he really gravitates toward older boys, which is almost annoying, since there are three other
4 year old girls who would be perfect). I have high hopes for the telescope gorup, but I am also going to try to find people to expand our Campfire/nature/hiking group, and we might even join the city version of the 4-H club, along with music lessons.

Back to the Aspergers...is he just really socially awkward, or does he have a fundamental wiring problem in figuring out the rules of social engagment? The disturbing symptoms from our trip have mainly disappeared, so my problem is working with subtle clues and comparsions to other kids in trying to figure this out. I did join a Yahoo group with homeschooling parents of Asperger's kids, so I hope to glean a lot of useful information there. I keep thinking about what Lisa (a mom of a now seven year old Asperger's boy, who was in the original Campfire group before it split to accomodate different schedules). Adam was, at first glance, a very normal kid. But there were just little discrepancies in how he dealt with the other kids (come to think of it, he wanted to play with the other kids, not sit off on the side, watching), especially in conflict. Anyway, after about 5 meetings and getting to know each other a bit, Lisa just casually mentioned how much Chance reminded her of Adam at the same age (we never discussed the Aspergers), and I didn't think anything of it at the time - I just thought she meant the same interest in space and Legos. But now, I think she meant more in the way he dealt with other people. I am going to try to link back up with her casually (I actually really clicked with her),
and see if she'd be interested in more interaction with me and Lynne and our little Campfire/nature group.

I don't think I have anything else to write about right now, but we're doing fine here. Hope everything is going well for everyone!

Kris