Ben's Friends

In an effort to give Ben more opportunity to socialize with his school-chums(and give him some time away from Emily!), I've been making a big effort to attend the playdates and functions organized by our class-mom. It's really important for him to have a lot of chances to see other kids playing so he can learn how to integrate himself. Social-cognitive things are hard for him and the more opportunity he has to play with other kids, the better he will get at reading social cues and figuring out what is expected of him by his friends during group-play. We joined a weekly babysitting co-op with other kids in his class, too. The moms will take turns staying with the kids and leaving for some free-time. The kids will get lots of interaction and everyone wins:) We went on Tuesday and he loved it. I got to spend 2.5 glorious hours wandering around the mall by myself and he got to play with his buddies. Awesome.

These pictures are from a park playdate we went to on Monday. Ben played in the water with his friends, then they played in the sandbox until a game of chase ended with Ben slipping on some sand and scraping the hell out of his knees and elbow:( Poor guy! He had fun up until then and that's all that matters!