Games Come in All Shapes and Sizes

I love Bobby and don't get me wrong, I love his autism too, because it's part of him. Yet in any given situation I'm not entirely sure whether to register him as a genius or a fruitcake. I think that this is because most geniuses are fruitcakes in part, anyway. Also, I'm not sufficient enough a genius myself to recognise it when I see it.

Fruitcakes, on the other hand, I can spot a mile off.

This is what he's just asked me to do. It's a request he's been storing in his head all day, because it was blurted out in the car on the way home with great urgency. I've had to find a Google image of classic Super Mario (it had to be pixellated), shrink it to the right size and then print out a number of 'level maps'. These are the full pixellated images of a Super Mario Nintendo game level. On paper, they don't resemble much. They are long, narrow and extremely small.

I couldn't think what he wanted them for and he wanted hundreds. In the end he settled for the six that I could successfully cut out and paste onto a landscape piece of paper.

Having cut out the tiny Mario character and cut a small hole in the spare bed's blanket in doing so, he proceeds to jump the paper chap over each bit of the level, singing the Mario theme music as he goes. Within about five seconds he is done and announces he needs more levels.

I refuse, because I'm a sad old whatsit who can't be bothered hassling with stuff that Bob tires of in 5 seconds. Then again, this is excellent imagination! Shouldn't I be encouraging this?

Bobby developed imaginative play really late and so this is pretty typical of what he does these days. All of a sudden we have an entire drawer of little cut out characters. They're never made up entirely from imagination, they're either printed or scribbled versions of Mario, Skylanders or whatever advert's taken his fancy. Then he'll develop a faithful re-enactment of what he's seen in a video game or on TV. It may not be an entirely original form of play, but it's a big leap forward from what we had before. This is a kind of in-between world of imagination.

His school assistant and I were bemused at all the cutting out requests at first. It was starting to get in the way of school work. Then we thought - hold on - this is a piece of development that Bobby missed out on. As he grows, he is starting to fill in some important gaps. And maybe - although it's a bit bizarre - this is is a gap that we need to let him fill. He didn't do the drawing and cutting out that most toddlers do. At the time he was flapping, humming and spinning stuff. This is suddenly all the rage, now that he's eight.


It's really easy to pass off Bobby's little paper games as insignificant or quite frankly a pain in the backside if you're trying to get some work done on the computer. Yet they are as important to him as 'normal' games like dressing up and make believe are to other kids. I try to be in Bobby's world as much as possible - it's a great place most of the time. So yep, he should have his little scenes if he wants, even if I can't quite see the point.

They represent a stepping stone in a path that's often unclear to me, but - just as in the rest of life - I can't rule out their significance just because I'm too daft to understand the bigger picture. Looking back at this pathway that Bobby's walked, he has done a pretty good job of self-development so far. With a little support (that means me joining in paper games etc.) I reckon he'll have it all sussed.

So, who am I to argue?