From the moment he could sit up and manipulate objects, Archer has been lining things up. Along with the number-shapes he forms with his hands at great speed, it's the most persistent of his autistic behaviors. But as he has matured, he's transferred his interest in linearity to patterns, and to connecting objects through some similar characteristic.
That's why I came home today to this:
The word "joker" in lower-case Leapfrog fridge magnet letter, topped by a joker from a star-shaped playing card set
And this:
Number blocks topped by corresponding playing cards
The capital A, K, Q, and J fridge magnets were also sitting on the sofa, wearing little ace, king, queen, and jack playing card hats.
But for all the obsessive ordering of his life, Archer at nearly six years old is also capable of the leaps of imagination that come from combining disparate items -- leaps that delight me just as much in him as they do in his sister, whose sense of juxtaposition is more developmentally typically. Here's another of his fridge magnet creations from today, this one actually on the fridge:
"The house has gone to sleep," he explained.
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