Living with "The Different Mind"

Yesterday (and today for that matter) I was really down in the dumps. Here is what I posted as my Status on Facebook:

It is so sad to me (like literal tears right now) that my son has ZERO inherent ability to play. Just gave him a box full of blocks and a bag full of little people animals, and all he can do is put them in a pile on the floor and push them around. I make a barn for him and all he does is shove all the animals in it. He... has no imagination. A child with no imagination is a tragedy.

Here are a few add-ons to I posted as well:

Its truly heartbreaking...it really is....I think about how when I was a child his age and how easy it was to slip into that world of imagination, to make something out of nothing, to be "in that world" for as long as you were allowed. Jack is literally void of that. It is so sad to know what he is missing...

....its just really sad to step back and see it in action...He has been doing play therapy for quite a while, but it still doesnt cut it, KWIM? Again, having to teach a kid how to "play" - its hard to digest...

I decided to snap some pics of the things he does to give folks an inside look into "his thought processes". He will be 4 in 2 months.

This is "Lining Up". Remember the movie Poltergeist? Remember when JoBeth Williams is in the kitchen and the chairs are "normal", then she does the dishes or something like that, and turns around and they are stacked up? I joke that I live in the Poltergeist house because everytime I straighten everything out and put it back in the right places, I turn around and see this. On a more serious note, he flips out if I change things back to the way they should be. It's sad. As I was writing this, he moved another ottoman into the room to fill the space between the cooler and the other ottoman.

And yes, the dog looks miserable because he is miserable. He can't move around this stuff and really cant lay down and relax with this going on.

"Rainbows"

There's 20 of them, and I probably make 10 a day. He knows ALLLLL of them. We spend the day with me drawing them, then us putting them in a bag, then him taking them out of the bag and scattering them on the floor (I didnt snap a pic but will), repeat bag/floor throughout the day. He takes them to bed and know when one is missing. Usually when they go over 20, I can thin them out and toss em, but I cant toss them all. Intermixed are projects from school that he made, and badly drawn animals, which are always, in this order: Peacock, turkey, chicken, duck, rooster, goose....repeat.....

When my husband comes home, he begins the process with him all over again...

This is how he plays with his cars. He doesnt shoot them across the floor, or make "vroom vroom" sounds, run them down tracks or ramps (we have them, he doesnt use them, and when he does, it is only after modeling and he will only do so for 5 minutes before reverting back to this). He shoves them under our subwoofer. The Mickey Mouse stethascope is in there too for some reason or another. The cars will make their way through the house by either being, here, or put in a bucket (where they are now), then sorted and organized into their carrying case, then repeated back to the sub woofer...















So there ya go....some insight into the mind of an ASD child.....