"Kick the ball to Naynan"

It's 6am. I'm making coffee. Nathan comes into the kitchen, carrying a rubber ball. "Kick the ball to Naynan!" he sings. As I am encouraging him to kick a ball in the kitchen before I've even had my coffee, I think to myself that there are probably other parents, perhaps even within a square mile of me, who would not be encouraging this, and who perhaps have a rule about no balls in the house, nevermind the kitchen. After all, some 4-year-olds don't have IEP goals about kicking that they've been working on for the past 2 years. Some 4-year-olds can, in fact, kick a ball really hard, in a way that is not appropriate in anyone's kitchen. Kicking has been hard for Nathan, though, and I'm excited he wants to initiate a short, impromptu indoor soccer game. I'm also excited about his use of language to initiate the game. I'm excited about a whole lot of things that might just be seriously annoying if another 4-year-old did them in another kitchen at 6am. It's a special needs mommy moment, a moment of pride in my child's small gains, and of being content in the moment with my child.

"Kick the ball to Froggy!" says Nathan. He leaves, returns with his singing stuffed frog. He can't quite seem to figure out this part of the game, though-- he's got the frog but can't seem to decide how to kick the ball to him. I demonstrate Froggy kicking the ball to Nathan, but Nathan decides just to play with the frog. Game over. We try it again later in the day when Nathan again tells me "Kick the ball to Froggy!", but he still seems equally perplexed about how this is is supposed to work. Perhaps he'd like the frog to kick independently. Stuffed frogs are not Nathans, though; no matter how many times we demonstrate kicking, the frog will not learn it. Nathan, on the other hand, is getting there. It takes time, and patience, and a willingness to encourage him when he is ready (even if that happens to be 6am) but he's getting there.