Never Let Things Go: The Much-Beloved Collapsible Tunnel

Image: Long neon green collapsible tunnel
lying on an orange carpet
with two beigey feetses sticking out.

Our entire house is in disarray at the moment. For hole in the bucket/If You Give a Mouse a Cookie reasons: For her 16th birthday, we moved Iz into what used to be my office. Finding a place for all the stuff that used to be in my office means revisiting nearly every room in the house. Which meant some of those rooms, after years of paints and glitter glue splattering on walls and play doh being ground into carpets, got recarpeted and repainted. Which meant many more things got moved around. And we discovered many things that really weren't being used any more. Which meant that many many many many of those things got purged.

One of the to-purge items was Leo's (we thought) formerly beloved green collapsible tunnel. Which I placed in my "deal with this please" spot by the front door until I could figure out where or to whom it should go.

And then Leo found the tunnel.

And Leo was very very happy to have found the tunnel.

Image: Teen boy with beige skin and
short curly hair standing up inside
a neon green collapsible tunnel
with only his head sticking out

And Leo immediately crawled into it and spend a nice long time just being by himself in the tunnel. Even though, at fourteen, he barely fits. No matter. Yay tunnel.

He also enjoyed getting into the tunnel and walking around in it.

Later on Leo's sister Mali found the tunnel. And she enjoyed doing exactly the same things Leo enjoyed doing.

And everyone was happy. Including me, because that tunnel is one less item to find a new home for.

(Though we still have OMG so much stuff to purge. Any purging/potlatching/eBaying/too much stuff-ing/kids grew out of all this shit so what do we do with it now expert commentary appreciated.)

Toca Band: Best Music App for Leo Ever

We're a family of Toca Boca fans, which is no secret -- I'm pretty sure we own all their apps, and we jump up and down every time a new one comes out. So: Yay! Toca Band arrives today!

Leo has always loved music apps, but this one is special, this is the one he's been waiting for -- as he can show you himself in the video below, which shows him diving right in, seconds after opening Toca Band for the very first time. Watch him go:

Do you see? Do you see how easy-to-use -- and fun -- and open-ended -- and goofy -- and creative this app is? Yet still structured enough for Leo to feel comfortable exploring? He doesn't need to read; he doesn't need to understand the characters' scat-style, often word-free "singing;" he doesn't need to stop and figure out how to use anything. The swipe-based selection menu at the bottom of the screen is easy for him to navigate, and to pluck characters from and then plonk on stage in different musical combinations. He enjoyed checking out all the different sounds/beats/loops, then popping the characters on the center stage star, exploring their individual percussive or vocal or musical characteristics and how they meshed with what was going on on the main stage -- and then popping right back to the main screen.

This this this. This is how apps should be designed. If you ever contemplate creating apps to delight and entertain kids -- all kids, including autistic kids like Leo -- then you need to take a long, hard, detailed look at apps like Toca Band, and start trying to understand why and how they work.

Leo's little sister Mali was waiting behind her brother the entire time he was playing the new app, desperate to have her own turn. And when she got it, she immediately started experimenting with innumerable musical combinations on the main stage, running over and asking us to listen to each one -- and they were fun to listen to, she was able to get really creative. Seeing what she and Leo could do made me itch to dive in, too. In fact the only reason I'm not playing with Toca Band right now is because I'm typing. The only reason.

The Toca Band "Stage." You can swipe the characters below to select different ones.
Placing a character on the center stage star opens up their own screen
-- with more musical options.

The only caveat I'd give is that if your kids push back against requests to turn their iPad's volume down (ahem, my progeny), then this app is yet another argument for Apple to enable a global iDevice volume limiter. Especially if your child gets really explorey with multiple musicians and center stage percussion characters, because Toca Band makes achieving dissonance and cacophony just as simple as harmony and counterpoint. All valid musical expressions! But not ones a precoccupied parent like me is going to want to hear at top volume for hours on end.

As device volume limit is not within the developer's control, I have no problem stating that Toca Band is a fabulous app. It is a Shining Example app. It is an app that lets my son be smart and creative. It is an app Leo adored on sight.

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Disclosure: Toca Boca sent me a preview code for Toca Band. But, as always (and since Leo's iPad has 450+ apps) I only write about apps that really stand out.

Star Wars Yoga Class

Glad someone in our house is getting exercise. Mali has been putting Leo's Star Wars action figures through their yoga paces, letting them join the usual class of pinnipeds, Littlest Pet Shop bobblers, and trucks.

I like the photo above because some of the oak tree branches look like wayward Mali curls. (Have been experimenting with various methods of taming those locks, advice always welcome.)

Always with the too-busy over here, which  makes focusing on play and fun ever-more important. There's only one little kid left in our house now, moments like these need to be celebrated and savored.

Autism: No Matter What, There's Always Trains

Last week was a comet ride, with more activity than I ever imagined could be fit into a mere six days -- it included an intense all-day conference (Hacking Autism's hackathon, more on that on TPGA tomorrow and Wed), meetups (Mali got to meet the excellent Bjorn of Toca Boca, followed by sharing panna cotta with my mom & Sr. Procopster), trips to Carmel to see the amazing Jordan Sadler speak on the intersection of Michelle Garcia Winner social thinking approaches and Unitarian Universalist principals, autism fundraisers (thanks to a furry blue monster), visitors (my mom from SoCal, Floyd & TLC from KY, whee!), inspirational open houses (Leo's), pumpkin patching (Leo's class), helping to finalize the Thinking Person's Guide to Autism manuscript (current heavy lifting by the unbelievably talented Jen Myers), trying to figure out why so many people are behaving badly while getting divorced (not us, not anyone you know, fairly stunned, no comment otherwise), Mali getting suspended from school for not just decking but threatening a fellow student (we will be enacting a behavioral contract with her; bit of irony there, completely on board), Iz touring a local high school so she can make informed choices for next year's transition (!!!!), and birthdays (mine, mostly an afterthought). (I can't even get into what Seymour gets to do for work tomorrow -- mostly because I'm so jealous -- but it's beyond stratospheric.)

Throughout it all -- and as you might imagine there have been schedule changes a-go-go -- Leo has been a good sport, cheerful and adaptable. He's been using great language, been intensely social, has demonstrated unprecedented awareness regarding self-care, and just yesterday upended everything I've been saying during my last few weeks' worth of iPad talks and workshops about him rarely doing non-iPad independent play by doing some fairly awesome non-iPad related independent play: He set up this entire train track by himself, using every last piece of track we own. Pretty damn cool, eh? He even let his godmother TLF play with him. Lovely. Love that boy.

Leo Loves Music Apps: PianoBall

I took August mostly off from things iPads & Apps (due to pure mushroom cloud overwhelm), and am easing back in with a single solitary app review (and by giving three local iPad workshops in the next two months, heh).

Leo has been grooving on several different apps lately, but the most pleasant surprise came from PianoBall ($1.99), which we picked up at a discount thanks to its inclusion on the most recent Moms With Apps App Friday. PianoBall is the kind of app I like to get for Leo, since he loves almost nothing better than musical free play with structural underpinnings, yet with a novel interface. Which is what PianoBall is all about!

See those four balls at the top of the keyboard below? You can spin all four of them in any direction, to change the keyboard's features. Starting from the left:

• The first ball changes the keyboard to the ball's front color, and says that color out loud (oooh, learning!).
• The second lets you toggle the keyboard between plinking away on a standard keyboard, and tapping out a preset tune using any key, somewhat like Leos' beloved Tappy Tunes.
• The third turns the keys rainbow-colored, and lets you shift the spectrum around.
• The fourth changes the keyboard's instrument sound: keyboard, drums, saxophone, xylophone (pictured).

The video below is Leo checking out PianoBall for the first time. Wackiness! And glee! He's been particularly unsettled lately, having a hard time focusing and sitting still -- so the minimal demands but spectacular results of PianoBall let him have exactly the kind of stress-free fun right he really needs right now.

Thank you, Internet, MomsWithApps, and App Developers in general. You keep our boy so happy.

Pacifica Play Time

Pacifica is such an excellently funky little town. Did you know it only incorporated in 1957? Before that each of its valleys was its own oasis of funk. In the Sharp Park neighborhood, where Iz had a soccer game this afternoon, that funkiness was on display in an delightful neighborhood playground that we will be revisiting, oh yes.



Because there were very good swings. For swinging, yes, but also for making soothing twin trenches in the tan bark.



And there were sit-upon snails. Who hasn't dreamed of getting to ride a snail?



And there were suspended wooden beam bridges for testing one's balance and trust in the universe -- could a person make it across such an unpredictable plank not just once but five or six or maybe even seven times in a row? Leo wants to assure you: it can be done.



And there was a playhouse that turned into a path that turned into a play structure that incorporated an enormous eucalyptus. Leo did several satisfying circuits.

The last few weeks have been so busy. So busy, with the IMFAR-ing and the iPad workshops and the schedule storm that is our life of late, e.g., Iz and Seymour just returned last night from a whirlwind Bar Mitzvah tour of Los Angeles.

Today, we all wanted to take it easy. Just for a day. So it was nice to simply ... play. 

When a Boy Misses His Daddy

Leo is not pleased that his dad remained up North when the two of us came back home. Seymour is a primary component of Leo's usual night-time routine: Daddy comes home, we all eat dinner together (usually Leo's second dinner, his meal frequency is Hobbity), Daddy goes on the trampoline with Leo, and then Daddy gives Leo his bath while I laugh and chat with them from the adjacent laundry room. Afterward I play Leo a few tunes on the pennywhistle, and our boy drops off -- by 9:15, at the latest.

With Daddy away, Leo's night-time routine makes no sense, and has steadily deteriorated -- first he stopped tolerating the pennywhistle, then he refused to go to bed on time and insisted on snuggling on the couch with me while I worked, then last night he refused to go to bed entirely until well past midnight -- and played with his iPad obsessively. (So that would be a not-good iPad aspect for our boy.)

But our days have remained fun, and I have enjoyed spending so much one-on-one time with my boy in this calm, quiet, chatterbox-free house, and during excursions. Today (after a lovely lunch with dear friends Jen, Descartes, Lucy, Jake, Susan, and Isaac) we headed to our favorite beach and spent nearly an hour burying each other's limbs in the colorful pebbles:

I could spend hours at this beach looking at individual pebbles. They're even more beautiful when they're wet. I recommend clicking on the photo so you can see them close up.

Digging digging and even more digging. This is the best beach in the world for a sensory-seeking child. No tools needed.

Still working on 1:1 correspondence whenever we can.

Seymour and the girls return in the AM. And our boy's routine will resume. And he'll be happy. But I'll also be a little bit sad to give up our intense, pleasant daytime camaraderie, even though it will mean our three missing pieces have returned.