So the Monster’s getting one more week of camp at the JCC, courtesy of their “Sunday Funday Everyday” program.  Because I’m home from work for the week, the wife and I are taking turns with the run to drop him off and pick him up.

Much of the staff from the program was also present at Camp Milldale, so they’re already acquainted with what he can and cannot do, with his foibles and the like.  This was a good push to get him to go there, and so it was very easy to part with the money for the additional week.

For starters, when I picked him up yesterday, he was… actually verbal.  “Abba,” he chimed in.  “Go to Abba’s car.”  This was in addition to the random echolalia that I see normally, comments about “I see a book.  I see a picture of a book.”  (There was no book.)  His counselors were very happy to see him and very expressive with him, and very good on the way out of trying to get situational-appropriate interaction out of him along with some encouragement towards eye contact.

But, more importantly, his counselors were actually telling us about how he is more verbal at the camp than we see at home.  That doesn’t, perhaps, assess the quality of what comes out of his mouth, but it’s often like pulling teeth at home to get him to talk about anything, and so it’s nice to hear that he’s at least trying to communicate with others.  I don’t know if it’s something because these are not us or whatnot… but hey, any communication is good communication.

And they love him, which is a good thing overall – to a one, they think he’s sweet and wonderful.

All we have to get him doing, though, is being as verbal at home as he’s apparently at camp.