Leo Caught a Wave with Surfers Healing

I think we're going to have to move to San Diego. Or Hawaii. Somewhere Leo can be in the waves every day. Leo's San Diego vacation week started with him staying up until 1:30 AM, stimming, vocalizing unhappily, physically out of sync*, asking to go home. Now that he's been to the beach every day for four days straight -- topped off with a session with a gold-standard, intuitive local ABA therapist -- he is talking a blue streak ("I don't have lemonade; I have a shirt!"), physically in sync, happy, balanced -- and his constant requests is to go to the beach, not back to our [four year old] "New House."

Leo got to have a hell of a "go to the beach?" day today, thanks to the luminous Autism Supermom, whom I got to meet at BlogHer, and who invited us to today's Surfers Healing surfing event! 

I had heard about the organization before and about how wonderful it is for the participants, and Landon at ThAutcast recently wrote about The Swell Life, an Oprah show about the Surfers Healing founding family -- but I'd also heard it was near-impossible to get in, and our trips to San Diego aren't always planned in advance, so I never imagined Leo would be able to join up.

I know I overuse the phrase "best day ever," but when you have a kid like Leo -- a kid whose whole life is about how he keeps topping himself -- we have a lot of best day evers.

SURFERS HEALING WAS THE BEST DAY EVER.

Leo was thrilled from the moment he walked into the waves with his team (above). Then he rode out to the waves with his surfing buddy. Seymour and I sat on the beach, remarking on much Leo must be loving bobbing on the waves on the surf board, and how it wouldn't be long before he slipped into the brine.

It wasn't long, not at all.

And then ... Leo was back on the board. And the board was riding on a wave.

And then ... Leo did it! Our boy surfed!

It was so awesome. Leo came bounding out of the surf, bursting with the kind of giddy glee that is usually accompanied by prancing or the shooting of cannons. Widest grin ever, with giggles plus peals of laughter. So, so happy, our boy.

You can't quite see the happy here, because we had to make him come out of the water. But the momentarily absent happy is reflected in our faces, because when Leo's happy, we're happy for him.

You can see some of the happy, below, as he lolls in his beloved surf.

So proud of Leo. So grateful to Surfers Healing and Autism Supermom and all the amazing volunteers and excellent families and our community that makes such things happen.

So happy.

*This is a euphemism, people.

The Luckiest Zip-Lining, Surfing, Boogie Boarding Boy in Town

You'd never know Leo hit an extremely rough patch last week if you only saw the great time he had this past weekend at his friend I.'s birthday party at AcroSports in San Francisco:

He ziplined! OMFG! And the graceful way he skipped down that trampoline -- I could watch Leo prance, all day.

The photo below doesn't quite capture the glee on our boy's face as he bounced and swung in the giant bungee contraption. (Better pix of Leo in our friend Chris's photo essay about how to talk to parents of kids with autism.) I'm so glad we went -- I was on the edge about Leo not being able to participate and possibly disrupting the party -- but I have learned to have faith in our boy's love of fun, and cupcakes (though the latter enthusiasm started to spiral toward the party's end, so we made a quick exit so as to be thought of as flighty rather than party-destroyers).

Leo also had a wonderful, wonderful time ten days ago as a guest of RideAWave.org, an all-volunteer organization that enables a day of full-on surfing, kayaking, and boogie boarding for kids with special needs like Leo, or completely unlike Leo -- doesn't matter as long as they're up for a day at the beach. Here's our boy rocking out on a boogie board:

All geared up and ready to go (in 58° F water, brrrr, but Leo didn't mind).

Beach Wheelchair! Like I said, EVERYONE got to go in the water. You hear that, Jennnyalice? Everyone.

And EVERYONE got to go surfing. Everyone.

Iz even found a way to keep Mali busy while Leo was hanging ten.

Smiling for the camera with his medal, and his friendly beach buddy John -- who stayed by his side all day and made sure Leo's fun was maximized. Lucky, lucky boy.

I would love to see a RideAWave-like movement happen at AcroSports -- they're a community center, after all. The AcroSports staff was great with Leo -- they treated him like any other kid -- but they don't appear to have dedicated programs for our kids. They also have to charge extra for large parties of kids with special needs because of the staffing requirements, and probably because of their tight not-for-profit budget. But could you imagine a full day of bungeeing, ziplining, and trampolining for all our kids -- free of charge, staffed by volunteers, and open to every single kid who wants to go? I think it's a matter of finding the right person to spearhead the project. If I could Madrox myself, I'd be on it. In the meantime, I think Leo will be returning to both places whenever possible.