Mr N has been very interested in his set of five monster trucks lately, on Thursday he wanted them all up on the entertainment center. He showed off his coordination by carrying all five of them, even if one fell he didn't get frustrated, he'd just rearrange the ones in his arms and grab the fallen truck.
While staying on task wasn't his best quality on Thursday he did do well when he was engaged. We're hoping next week he'll do better.
Now onto the weekend...
Daddy worked from home Friday morning, then we headed out for a weekend camping trip. We had initially intended to camp on the island on Cherry Lake, but it's a long trip by paddling from the boat launch. It was quite windy when we got on the lake so we picked a camping spot not too far out. Our boat is quite small, so Daddy had to go back and get a second load. While Daddy was getting load number two, the kids and I were playing on the beach on our campsite.
We started by throwing rocks, then wading into the lake and just chilling by the lake. Daddy bought them new camping chairs so they were pretty content to just sitting in their new chairs.
The kids were playing in the water, I started saying "I love you", E said "I love you, too", then Mr N surprised me with "I love you, too". I couldn't believe my ears! I tried again. "I love you", E said "I love you, too" once again Mr N said "I love you, too". His sounded much more like "a wuv utu" but it's the closest he's come to saying I love you. That is how happy moms are made.
Daddy arrived back at camp and had ran into a park ranger who told him we couldn't camp where we'd set up so we moved our camp across the way to here.
Camp sites have to be set up at least 100 ft in elevation above the high water line. So we set up our camp up in the trees a bit. This beach is where we spent most of the weekend, playing on the beach. The kids threw sticks, rocks, and pine cones. Mr N is saying "rock" more and more all the time, his favorite thing is having one of us throw in a bunch of rocks at once. E has decided that swimming is her favorite thing to do.
Saturday morning we woke up early, Mommy made bacon and eggs, the eggs didn't like being cooked and kept jumping in the fire, so there they stayed. Thankfully no one complained and we added a skillet to our list of things to add to camping supplies. Daddy had left early fishing, so I loaded the kids into the boat and rowed around looking for him. We found him fishing at the falls up the shore. We picked him up and took him back for breakfast. After the bacon was gone Daddy decided we should cook up his trout that he'd caught the night before, trying Mommy's new recipe. He declared it a winner and we set out for the island to enjoy more fishing, exploring and some swimming.
The trip island was about a 40 minutes by rowing against the wind. It seemed the wind would pick up and blow against us every time we got in the boat, after hours of calm water. Daddy set out fishing on the shady side of the island while the kids and I swam on the beach. After a few hours of exhausting ourselves we checked out the camping spot on the top of the island to figure out if it is somewhere we'd like to camp in the future. There isn't much flat land up on top, so we'd have to use our little tent if we did camp there, we'd also need to pack much lighter, because making multiple trips to haul our stuff that far out would be far too much work. We headed back to camp for some lunch, then spent the rest of the day playing on the beach by our camp.
After an evening trip on the lake we packed it in for the night, took pan baths and settled into bed. Two nights of sleeping on the hard ground, since we didn't have room for the air mattresses, made us realize we need sleeping mats for when our air mattresses can't come with us.
This morning laying in bed, no one really wanting to venture out to the mosquito swarms; Daddy asked E what her favorite part of camping was, she readily said "swimming", then he asked about everyone else. Mr N and Mommy also have swimming as their favorite camping experience, Daddy's favorite part about camping is throwing rocks, according to E.
We packed up late this morning and started the journey back to the boat launch. The weekend of practicing sure made the return trip much easier than the departing trip. It still took two trips, but we deemed it much worth it.
My bad mommy moment of the weekend came Saturday morning, I was building a fire, getting breakfast ready, getting kids dressed, hair fixed, teeth brushed, etc, the usual tedious morning things that must happen to have a good start to the day. The kids kept asking for things at the exact wrong time and during one of Mr N's endless chattering sessions I said "stop talking". I immediately stopped myself, apologized to him and with tears in my eyes said "never stop talking, Mommy didn't mean it, very good talking". It was at that moment that I realized how much more he's been talking lately, not just labeling things and requesting things, but babbling and chattering quite often, too.
On our drive home with two content kids, two exhausted but happy adults, and a Jeep full of our weekend necessities we made plans for another camping trip. We happily discussed how well Mr N is doing and how much he enjoys camping and being outdoors. While children with Autism typically do not handle change well, Mr N has always been pretty easy going and doesn't mind spur of the moment off roading, day trips, or camping trips.
All weekend we would see butterflies on the beach and even a couple at our campsite. Mr N was quite intrigued, at first I thought he was trying to catch the pretty little blue butterflies, then realized he was trying to smash them. He was successful in smashing one, then changed his technique to stomping them. I'm not sure that he was able to eliminate any with stomping, but he sure did have fun butterfly stomping. He even said "fly" a few times as he happily chased them.
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