Rolcanos and Dinosaurs

No that is not a typo... that is what Gabe calls volcanoes and I think it's adorable. :) One day he had his friend Sook over to play and they used play doh to make a fabulous recreation of the earth just before the dinosaurs were wiped out!! We even made the volcano erupt (with a little help from baking soda and vinegar)... super cool and exciting!!!  Aren't they creative? 

 

 Ok I decided to share a funny tidbit about this "play date".  Where to start though...?  Gabe is super reserved at school.  I mean it's actually painful for me to watch him struggle so much to open up around others.  For the most part I try not to worry - it's just him and I have to let him be himself and not try to force him to be someone he's not.  But I was more than I little frustrated when encouraging him to talk, smile, look people in the eye and return a hello - even practicing with him - wasn't doing any good.  I would work in his classroom and watch as a whole day would go by without him cracking a smile and barely saying two words to the kids around him.  Argh!  I want him to be happy. I want people to see his bright, vivacious personality.  I could see, plain as day, that he was observing instead of participating and that was just tormenting me.  As I said already though, I had to come full circle in the end and accept that he will do things the way HE wants to do things and I just need to love him the way he is.  But I did decide that at least I could start coordinating play times with school friends at our house so that he could break the ice a little, one on one. Gabe and Sook actually get along great together and play at recess together. Sook is almost exactly like Gabe... so quiet and straight faced that I have only seen him smile a couple times all year!!  So anyway, back to the story... When Sook arrived at our house I suggested Gabe go show him all his toys upstairs.  After a while I went up to surreptitiously see how things were going... and found them both sitting in his room not talking, just kinda looking around!!!  I laugh just remembering it! I was slightly horrified at first and immediately gave them some ideas for a fun time, one of which was making a play-doh landscape.  The dinosaurs and volcano were their idea.  I should have known that those two would need a little help, haha!!!