Ruth Ayres hosts a weekly celebration at her blog. I appreciate this invitation to look for the positives in my week. This is what I’m celebrating:
1. Conquering fear. More or less. I have a fear of heights and never imagined that I would suggest doing a ropes course attached to trees, but that’s exactly what I did last weekend. I knew my son would love it, and except for the horrifying swing obstacle, I enjoyed it too and even elected to do a second course when we finished the first! AND I loved ziplining so much that we’re planning another outing in a couple of weeks just to do the zipline! The swing=deeply traumatizing. Ziplining=awesome good fun. There is nothing remotely rational about phobias. Below you can see my pre-swing scowl.
2. Building good memories. When your children have emotional or behavioral issues, it can be really challenging to create a lot of happy memories for them. My son struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder, so it’s pretty rare that we can plan an outing and actually execute it. He loves to do physical things, he loves to climb, and he loves to take risks, so this outing was a perfect match for his particular interests and personality.
3. Soccer camp. My son participated in a weeklong morning soccer camp. I thought it would have little benefit for him since there was only one other kid his age, most of the kids were under 8, and his skill set is already so advanced. And it’s true that his skills didn’t improve at all. But he was able to practice something that’s actually much more important than soccer: his skills as a teammate, leader, and coach. I loved watching him with the little kids–picking them up when they fell, giving them high fives and lots of encouragement when they did something that even approximated a soccer move, and patiently showing them the same move over and over again until they (sort of) got it. Another side of him comes out when he’s around little kids.
4. Shopping with my mom. My saintly mother took me to Rapid City to buy me a new purse and then offered to buy me some new clothes as well. I wasn’t planning to get anything new for fall, so it was quite a treat. It’s always fun to run errands with my mom. She even makes Walmart bearable. I’m lucky she lives just two blocks away!
5. Weeding. My garden has been sadly neglected over the past few weeks. I have managed to water when we haven’t had rain (and we’ve had a surprising amount of rain), and I have occasionally weeded here and there, but it’s overgrown and unkempt right now. I got out twice this week and weeded, and I have big plans to “finish” weeding tonight. (My gardener friends will recognize the irony of ever using the words finish and weeding in the same sentence.)
I also had to promise my mother to include some gratuitous cat photos in this blog post, so…. these are for you, Mom!
the dirigible plum 
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