David's autistic issues are behavioral - his own, and understanding other peoples'. He has an almost-photographic memory, and can tell you all about a story - but doesn't understand things like irony or motivation. David's world is pure: he has no capacity to understand why someone would be anything but truthful or do anything manipulative.
David lives a lot in his own world. He is not "into" sports at all. However, this weekend, we had a little bit of sports activity.
Near record breaking highs brought us close to 100 degrees F. this weekend. We got out the "pool" - an 18" X 8' pool. Both boys played in it for quite a while. After it was full, I took on the task of creating water balloons. The boys both like water balloons - Mikey loves to make them splat on the ground. He asked for one "untied" - I made him say a whole sentence to get one like that - and he either drinks or squirts the water, but never at other people.
David, OTOH, has learned that they can be tossed at PEOPLE.
Anyhow, David brought a paddle in the pool - it is plastic and came with a ball; it is called a "Sonic Paddle" because it makes a lot of noise when the ball is hit with it. He was sortof "air batting" with it, so I asked him to try to hit a water balloon with it when I tossed it. He did!
He loved this game. He even decided, on his own, that he would run "bases" in the yard - home being back in the pool.
He had a pretty good hit ratio, and the balloons against the Sonic paddle made a weird noise and a splash. When he hit one, he would run the bases, and I'd grab another balloon and try to hit him with it to tag him out.
The funny part came when he missed one. When he missed, the balloon fell into the pool and did not break. He decided the appropriate thing to do was to pick it up and toss it at me! He demanded I "freeze" (i.e., hold still) so he could hit me - and he did!
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