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Well, I think my muscles have finally recovered, more or less.
Week before last was science camp at Mount Hermon in the Santa Cruz mountains. The plan going forward was that I would take D every day and bring him home at night. Both his therapist and his teachers were skeptical about his ability to handle being away from home without support.
So I went and came home every evening (45 minutes - 1 hour each way). D, however, did not. He managed to stay two of four nights. I stayed there during the day -- I ended up providing a person to help focus D, or help when he was having a bad spell -- but tried to stay out of his way as much as possible. He was a little clingy towards the end -- I think he was getting tired.
Monday, we had a hike. It rained. A lot. And there was poison oak everywhere.
Tuesday, we had a hike in the morning and a rock climbing exercise in the afternoon. It rained harder.
Wednesday, we had classes in the morning and "electives" in the afternoon. D opted for the elective involving looking at things through microscopes, which meant finding things to look at, which meant, yep, another hike. It rained some, but the sun came out in the afternoon.
Wednesday night, we had a night hike -- without flashlights -- including a portion where each kid had to walk alone down the trail for about a minute and a half to a teacher waiting out of site. Jake the Naturalist told a story about night hiking in Yosemite and being scared by a bear, and how after that he was afraid that every bush he saw was a bear. "What is it you're afraid of?" (He ignored me when I piped up and said "Poison oak!") "It's not going to be here... Face your fears!" It didn't rain, and the moon came out at the end. And Jake gave all of us Wintergreen Lifesavers to crunch so we could see sparks, and explained about triboluminescence.
Thursday we had the "extended hike" -- basically, hike for a little while, play games, hike some more, eat lunch, etc., for six hours. The weather was actually lovely.
Friday, we did not have to hike. Thankfully.
D did everything. Including both the night and the extended hike. He complained some, but not too much; during the extended hike I was pleased to see that he was not one of the kids whining to stop for lunch.
I did most things: I kept falling down on the trails during hikes, and pulled a muscle in my side on Wednesday. Because we were in the Santa Cruz Mountains, hikes were just that -- up hill and down.
RS, the counselor for D's cabin, was the father of his best friend at school, and insisted on going on all the hikes, even though he has a bad knee. (I'm sure the fact that he is scheduled for knee surgery a week from now has nothing to do with that.) He once even uttered the phrase "Sometimes you gotta play hurt." He was, however, wonderfully supportive of D and rallied around the kids in his cabin to form a team to take care of each other.
However, his tough-guy attitude made me do more of the hikes than I would otherwise. Even on Thursday, when I had a pulled muscle, I went on the extended hike -- or most of it. The first part of the hike had a small uphill stretch (which hurt) but the rest was downhill and flat -- no problem. After lunch, we walked through Roaring Camp, met up with some other groups and headed back to camp. The trail was uphill at about a 45% angle. After about 50 yards, I found myself saying "I can do this -- I'm tough!" even though my side was beginning to really hurt. At that point I decided that I was simply trying to out-macho RS and decided to quit. I walked back down to Roaring Camp and the camp sent someone out to pick me up. D, though, opted to finish the hike with his group. And he didn't even bring up the rear -- he was in the middle of the pack.
D is tougher emotionally than I gave him credit for. He is also in better shape than we thought: six months ago, when his doctor was so worried about his weight, he could not have done this. Watching his food intake and -- more importantly -- increasing his activity level has really helped. (Last week he went back to the doctor so she could recheck his weight: he had lost two pounds and gained two inches in height in six months.) I *think* he enjoyed himself: if you ask him, he says "yeah, it was okay," but on the other hand, once he was back at school he couldn't stop telling all the kids in his Special Day Class about it. And I know it helped his self-esteem: he was proud, justly so, of doing everything else the other kids did -- especially the Night Hike. (Not only did he not refuse to do the "solo walk" portion of the night hike -- he volunteered to go first.)
I'm glad I could make this possible. He still would have not been able to stay as much as he did without me there. His speech and language therapist and his SDC teacher gave me flowers for doing this, but as far as I'm concerned, it was just what any parent in my situation would have done.
However, if I never have to drive Highway 17 at night again in the rain, it will be just fine with me. Fortunately, we seem to have escaped getting poison oak -- although it can show up as much as three weeks after exposure, according to Jake the Naturalist.
Week before last was science camp at Mount Hermon in the Santa Cruz mountains. The plan going forward was that I would take D every day and bring him home at night. Both his therapist and his teachers were skeptical about his ability to handle being away from home without support.
So I went and came home every evening (45 minutes - 1 hour each way). D, however, did not. He managed to stay two of four nights. I stayed there during the day -- I ended up providing a person to help focus D, or help when he was having a bad spell -- but tried to stay out of his way as much as possible. He was a little clingy towards the end -- I think he was getting tired.
Monday, we had a hike. It rained. A lot. And there was poison oak everywhere.
Tuesday, we had a hike in the morning and a rock climbing exercise in the afternoon. It rained harder.
Wednesday, we had classes in the morning and "electives" in the afternoon. D opted for the elective involving looking at things through microscopes, which meant finding things to look at, which meant, yep, another hike. It rained some, but the sun came out in the afternoon.
Wednesday night, we had a night hike -- without flashlights -- including a portion where each kid had to walk alone down the trail for about a minute and a half to a teacher waiting out of site. Jake the Naturalist told a story about night hiking in Yosemite and being scared by a bear, and how after that he was afraid that every bush he saw was a bear. "What is it you're afraid of?" (He ignored me when I piped up and said "Poison oak!") "It's not going to be here... Face your fears!" It didn't rain, and the moon came out at the end. And Jake gave all of us Wintergreen Lifesavers to crunch so we could see sparks, and explained about triboluminescence.
Thursday we had the "extended hike" -- basically, hike for a little while, play games, hike some more, eat lunch, etc., for six hours. The weather was actually lovely.
Friday, we did not have to hike. Thankfully.
D did everything. Including both the night and the extended hike. He complained some, but not too much; during the extended hike I was pleased to see that he was not one of the kids whining to stop for lunch.
I did most things: I kept falling down on the trails during hikes, and pulled a muscle in my side on Wednesday. Because we were in the Santa Cruz Mountains, hikes were just that -- up hill and down.
RS, the counselor for D's cabin, was the father of his best friend at school, and insisted on going on all the hikes, even though he has a bad knee. (I'm sure the fact that he is scheduled for knee surgery a week from now has nothing to do with that.) He once even uttered the phrase "Sometimes you gotta play hurt." He was, however, wonderfully supportive of D and rallied around the kids in his cabin to form a team to take care of each other.
However, his tough-guy attitude made me do more of the hikes than I would otherwise. Even on Thursday, when I had a pulled muscle, I went on the extended hike -- or most of it. The first part of the hike had a small uphill stretch (which hurt) but the rest was downhill and flat -- no problem. After lunch, we walked through Roaring Camp, met up with some other groups and headed back to camp. The trail was uphill at about a 45% angle. After about 50 yards, I found myself saying "I can do this -- I'm tough!" even though my side was beginning to really hurt. At that point I decided that I was simply trying to out-macho RS and decided to quit. I walked back down to Roaring Camp and the camp sent someone out to pick me up. D, though, opted to finish the hike with his group. And he didn't even bring up the rear -- he was in the middle of the pack.
D is tougher emotionally than I gave him credit for. He is also in better shape than we thought: six months ago, when his doctor was so worried about his weight, he could not have done this. Watching his food intake and -- more importantly -- increasing his activity level has really helped. (Last week he went back to the doctor so she could recheck his weight: he had lost two pounds and gained two inches in height in six months.) I *think* he enjoyed himself: if you ask him, he says "yeah, it was okay," but on the other hand, once he was back at school he couldn't stop telling all the kids in his Special Day Class about it. And I know it helped his self-esteem: he was proud, justly so, of doing everything else the other kids did -- especially the Night Hike. (Not only did he not refuse to do the "solo walk" portion of the night hike -- he volunteered to go first.)
I'm glad I could make this possible. He still would have not been able to stay as much as he did without me there. His speech and language therapist and his SDC teacher gave me flowers for doing this, but as far as I'm concerned, it was just what any parent in my situation would have done.
However, if I never have to drive Highway 17 at night again in the rain, it will be just fine with me. Fortunately, we seem to have escaped getting poison oak -- although it can show up as much as three weeks after exposure, according to Jake the Naturalist.
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