If anyone had told me this moment would be possible even a year ago, I wouldn't have believed it. But autism or no autism, we have no idea what is possible ... Life is a spectrum, yes, but it is so much more. It has dimensions we can't see and takes us on a journey that has as many ups and downs as it has steps forward. Ask a parent to describe a moment so joyful that she can't swallow the tears fast enough, and we realize how inadequate words are to describe life. Luckily, we have more than words. We have iPhones. And we have music ...

Welcome to my first Vlog! A big thank you to Laurie Wallin, mom of four, including two with special needs, for inspiring me with her wonderful Vlog entry about living with our fear and being OK with it. I highly recommend Laurie's website and her honest, inspiring videos. Looking forward to feedback ...

From the time Billy could walk -- at about 9 months -- he's been falling over. He was like a little Charlie Chaplin, silently stumbling through one wacky pratfall after another. At first, I thought his big head was throwing him off balance. At nine months, most babies are all head and most aren't walking. He ran constantly, in this falling-forward-head-first posture that looked a bit like somebody trying to balance a pumpkin on top of a pole.

For a long time, I firmly believed that Billy had a balance problem. I was assured by multiple occupational therapists that the fact that he stumbled and fell frequently was a sign that his vestibular system was screwed up and he found balance difficult. His underdeveloped nervous system couldn't process the information about spacial orientation, leaving him constantly off-balance.

At the age of four, Billy still stumbles and falls frequently. But we're starting to realize that his biggest problem is quite simply looking where he's going. He'll be looking at some kid riding a bike behind him while he walks in the opposite direction and directly into a tree. He used to look at his feet while attempting to peddle a tricycle - and he'd drive it into the wall.

However, we got him a Razor scooter this summer and realized that when he wants to, he can balance extremely well. And when he pays attention, he doesn't run into stuff. I've mentioned here before that he can zip in and out of furniture, stop on a dime, and pump one foot up in the air behind him while circling the dining room table.

About a month ago, he also started a special needs gymnastics class. Last Saturday, the coach asked him to walk across the high balance beam. He did it, holding Dave's hand, without a problem.

Then she upped the ante a bit and asked him to kick as he walked across the beam. Again, no problem. Taking it one step further, she asked him if he could do the same thing, only going backwards. Everyone was astonished when he kicked his way backwards across the beam without a single stumble.

Never in a million years would I have believed he could be that good at something requiring that kind of balance. Never in a million years could I have done that. (At left, you'll see a video of Billy's first ever attempt on the balance beam. Unfortunately, we didn't get his most recent triumph on video!)

Naturally, we have to rely on experts -- doctors, therapists, teachers -- to learn how to best support our kids on the spectrum. But sometimes, I've found, I can learn the most simply by watching Billy. And as time wears on, I've started to trust more what I see with my own eyes and to challenge assumptions made on the basis of a short, or otherwise limited, observation.

Balance and coordination are common problems among autistic kids. But my child is as individual and unique as a normally developing child; his support/education/therapy needs to be carefully coordinated to fit him as an individual -- and that plan may, and should, change over time as he changes. If we continued to focus on Billy's vestibular system, rather than on strengthening his visual tracking, we could waste a lot of time. And fail to address a fundamental problem that could affect his ability to read, write ... and avoid trees.

It could be that Billy's nervous system has matured a lot in the past two years; I'd certainly like to think so. Maybe the Razor scooter has a miraculous effect on balance (Note: I do not actually believe this). Regardless, we're going to work on his visual tracking through use of simple puzzles, books and other hands-on toys and put a check-mark (for now) next to "balance."

And prepare for Olympics 2020!

(By the way, if anyone has any good suggestions for exercises/tools that help improve visual tracking, I'd love to hear them!)

We're still big fans of our new iPad, the biggest drawback being the sheer volume of apps out there that we have yet to try, a lot of them completely FREE. I thought that as Billy finds his favorites, I'd spotlight them, in case you're looking for a great distraction, reward or skill-builder.

AutismXpress
FREE
A simple program that animates faces with different emotions. Choose “Happy” and a goofy cartoon laughs. Choose “Angry” and a red-faced blob bares his teeth, frowns and growls. I'm not sure how educational “Gassy” and “Burpy” are but Billy loves them.

Dr. Seuss books
$3.99 each
We have Oh the Places You Will Go, Green Eggs and Ham, and Dr. Seuss' ABCs, and each one has been played over and over by both kids. The great thing about these books is the interactivity. When you touch a picture anywhere on the page, you see and hear the word associated with it. You can choose “Read it myself” or “Read to me” options.

iGoPotty
FREE

From the geniuses who brought us Pull-ups. Billy LOVES LOVES LOVES this app. We have absolutely no problem about going to the potty now. When I click a button it sings, “I'm a big kid now!” and he stops whatever he's doing and starts dancing along to the music towards the potty. If he goes, he gets to click “I used the potty!” and gets an animated “sticker.” After nine stickers, the app reveals a new game, such as a drawing program or a matching game.

Kindergarten.com Apps
$0.99 each
ABA-based flashcard game designed to help kids categorize objects and people and develop more functional language skills. We've noticed a bit of echolalia/scripting after use of one set a few times, but luckily, there are more sets out there. I would recommend using this one as a jumping-off point for conversations, even if they get the answer “wrong.” For instance, if Billy is asked to “Choose the one you sit on,” and he points to the baby, we talk about what would happen if we sat on a baby.

Look In My Eyes
$2.99
Interesting practice for making eye contact; suggested for kids with high-functioning autism or Asperger's. Close-up photos of smiling kids appear and within a second or two, a number flashes in the center of the child's eyes. Billy's job is then to click the right number on a keypad. If he gets the number right, he earns “money,” which he can then spend to buy food in a cartoon fast-food restaurant or buy furniture – either way, he doesn't care anything about that part. I haven't noticed any definite increase in eye contact in the real world but stay tuned ...

Solar Walk
$2.99
Beautiful tour of the solar system with a 3-D option and groovy space music in the background. You can highlight each planet and its moons, drill into its core, read about its stats, check out pictures of the satellites that have orbited it, etc. You can drag the planets around and rotate them, so that you can look at their dark sides, light sides, orbits and relation to the rest of the solar system. Can't recommend this one highly enough! We use it as a post-bedtime story, lights out activity, and as a reward for successfully completing his nighttime routine.

First Words / First Words Christmas
FREE / $1.99 – 4.99
Drag and drop letters into the right position to form words. As soon as the words are in the right order, the picture of the object animates. There's a “lite” version that's free with a variety of words like “cat,” “train” and “cake.” You can also get sets of words with themes like “animals” or “around the house.” Billy liked the free version so much that we bought the deluxe set for $4.99 and then because we're all about Christmas in this house, the Christmas First Words for $1.99.

Ocean Blue
$9.99
A beautiful virtual ocean aquarium but not really worth the $10 price tag – unless you have an autistic child obsessed with fish who finds staring at it soothing. There are two different environments you can choose from for your fish and eight different animals, including a variety of fish, a shark and a sea turtle, that you can add to the environment. I'm a bit concerned at how much time he spends electrocuting the fish. But then again, WHY is electrocution of the fish an option? You can also feed the fish, take pictures of them or flush them. Yay. But it IS beautiful; the graphics are second-to-none.

Snowman 3D
$0.99
Mr. Potato Head in Snowman form. This cool little app lets you roll up three snowballs with your finger, stack them up, then choose from a variety of eyes, noses, hats, mouths, and bits of flair to add to your virtual Frosty. You can make a snowman that looks like a pirate or one that looks like a clown – or Billy's favorite, the pirate clown. This is a fun way to discuss body parts. And pirates.

Virtuoso
FREE
This is the kind of app that just blows my feeble mind. How does the same screen become a field of snow you can roll into snowballs in one application and in the next, it's a dueling piano? So so cool. I taught Billy to play “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” on this piano, which keeps him busy long enough for us to manage to eat a meal in a restaurant. You can apparently upgrade to a “pro” version of this piano for $0.99 but I don't know how much more you'd want out of an iPad piano or how many pros are going to be bringing this along to gigs, but if you've upgraded, let us know if it's worth the 99 cents.

Albert Einstein – who many believe was on the autism spectrum himself – once said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge ...”

Most children don't have to be taught to imagine; play is as natural to them as breathing. They push a car – or a block that they imagine is a car -- along the floor and say "vrroom, vroom" as soon as they can utter a sound. They cuddle baby dolls or pretend to eat or drink from toy cups and saucers. As they play at these things and imagine, they communicate, they connect with people, and they practice life skills.

Imaginative play is typically a challenge for kids on the autism spectrum. When most kids were starting to pretend, Billy was putting together the wooden track on his train table or linking up the trains and driving them along the track. When he played with blocks, his favorite game was "dominoes," in which he lined the blocks up one after another and knocked them down.

Before we knew better, we'd try to force him to act out stories with us. We bought herds of plastic Little People, toy soldiers, Disney characters, astronauts, Thomas trains and ark-loads of plastic animals. We have two doll houses, three barns, an entire plastic amusement park, a medieval fort, a Mars rover, a space shuttle, an elaborate toy kitchen, two play houses, and yes, a Noah's ark.

The lesson we learned: You cannot buy a child's imagination. At least, not Billy's.

The second lesson we learned: We can buy Willow's imagination. She jumps on any new toy like a duck on a June bug.

Following the Floortime model of “following his joy,” we invested, instead, many hours lining up both trains and blocks. Slowly – and I mean slooooooowly – things started to change.

At first, we were able to add a few minor “playful obstructions,” little challenges that complicate the game: Something is blocking the train track; the dominoes travel over and under objects, etc.

Billy still does a good bit of echolalia, repeating lines from books and TV shows. The next development step he made in imaginative play was to act out, in small ways, lines from books or TV shows. One day, several characters had a “jumping contest.” On another, an astronaut had a race with a pig. I couldn't have been happier if he'd composed a symphony.

So this summer I've made a point to spend a certain amount of time each day “practicing” imaginative play. Scheduling it might seem to defeat the purpose of following his joy, but there's method in my madness.

In the morning, I'll listen to whatever lines he's repeating. Then while he's napping, I'll try to set up the scene of that book or TV show with his toys.

For instance, one morning, he was stuck on “Where the Wild Things Are,” understandable since we'd read that as a bedtime story the night before.

While he was napping, I rounded up the characters from the story – or the closest I could approximate in our menagerie of plastic pets – and laid them out on the dining room table. Note: I moved this activity out of his play room so that he wouldn't be distracted by other toys while we were busy with our imagining.

I found one of his Little People to be Max and a taller female doll to be the mom. I found a dinosaur, a Shrek and a couple of other “wild things” and lined them up as well. I stole the bed from the dollhouse and dug out the toilet-paper-roll-boat we'd made in craft time the day before. Then I got a plate from the toy kitchen and put a plastic chicken leg on it, because as every parent knows, the story begins and ends with Max's dinner.

Billy surveyed all this with a suspicious eye. He suspected there was a lesson in it somewhere. “No circle time,” he informed me -- “circle time” is the way he describes any particularly boring lesson-like activity.

“No circle time,” I agreed. “This is about Max going to see the Wild Things.”

His eyes lit up. “Wild things!”

So I proceeded to tell the story with the characters I had laid out. I stopped to let him fill in some of he lines. His favorites: When the mother calls Max “wild thing!” and when Max threatens, “I'll eat you up!”

When we got to the part where “a forest grew” in Max's room, I felt a bump down at my thigh. Willow was holding a small house plant. I cannot say for certain that she was suggesting we use it for the forest, but I'm so used to things coming so easily to her (see her "Jurassic BooBoo" video for a masterpiece of imaginative play), that I didn't even blink at a 15-month-old making this leap. “Good idea,” I simply told her, and added it to the scene.

After a couple of rounds of Wild Things, Billy was getting a bit bored. At the next pause in my recitation, to my surprise, he changed the story.

“We have to find Saturn!” he told me and flew Max around the table.

“Saturn?” Then I realized that he was switching to his favorite episode of Little Einsteins. “No, Billy,” I corrected him, “This is Where the Wild Things Are.”

I tried to get him to bring Max back so that he could get in the little boat and sail to the window sill where Shrek and the plastic alligator were waiting. Completely forgetting that the point was for him to imagine something NEW, I was slightly irritated that my carefully laid out world wasn't getting used.

He sighed and came back to the table. We walked Max through his paces, sailing him back home to where his dinner was waiting for him. “And ...?” I prompted Billy.

He picked up the plastic chicken leg and bonked the mother on the head with it. The doll fell over. “She's dead,” he informed me, and hopped on his scooter and pushed off. I tried not to take this plot twist too personally.

Willow picked up the Mama doll, gave her a little kiss -- “Mmwah!” -- and put her in the bed. “Seepy (sleepy),” she said, pulling up the covers. She certainly is.

I learned an important lesson: Let Billy do the reciting. If he takes one look at the Wild Things set-up and wants to act out the Little Einsteins with Shrek and the dinosaur driving the Rocket, that's great.

I've gotten a little better at play time over the weeks. We used the toy barn and animals to act out the story Click, Clack, Moo. We used his Thomas trains and Little People to pretend The Little Engine That Could. And we've acted out Noah's ark ... with Batman.

And we made a Little Einsteins “golden pyramid” out of cardboard that Billy loved as much as any store-bought toy. He immediately swam all his Finding Nemo characters in and around it.

In fact, we find ourselves in a new development stage. While not inventing completely new stories yet, Billy is mixing and matching his favorites joyfully. A cow might say, “I think I can, I think I can” and a train might travel to the land of the Wild Things. Batman moves in an out of diverse roles with the ease of a plastic Lawrence Olivier.

On Monday we're going to make totem poles out of cardboard tubes, inspired by another favorite Einsteins episode. I wonder what Batman will make of those...