Pains and Joys of Raising a Disabled Child

The stream was softly trickling nearby.  The other 2 kids were at the hot springs pool enjoying the warm water.  The sun was out and shining warm over the mountain campground.  I had just sat down to read a book, everyone one else was in the camper getting ready for naps.  I got through maybe a paragraph and guess who was awake? Yep, Cayden, he had been asleep for 10 minutes at the most.

I got my backpack ready to go with water snacks and anything else Cayden might need on our hike.  He was excited to go and could hardly wait for me to get everything together. We set out on the campground road not exactly sure where we were headed.  Cayden was excited to be on the trail and on an adventure.

I saw a path off to the side of the road and we decided to take that into the woods.  Cayden has been watching a lot of Wild Kratts (which I heard is being pulled from Netflix) these past few months.  He began saying “Activate___________ power”  and naming several different animals.  He would then pretend to be that animal until he activated back to himself.

This new form of imagining is new for him.  He used to play with his toys and transform them, but now he is the person doing the transforming.  He is also at a stage where is becoming independent.  He can pull himself onto the counter and reach the bowls in the top of our cabinet.  He’ll then get his cereal, spoon and milk and make himself a bowl of cereal.

So here I am on a hike with a deer, moose, bug and whatever animal he can think of.  He was happily walking along activating into new animals and pretending to have their power.  I did end up finding a walking stick for him to carry around and help him up the steeper parts of the trail.  Though I think he just liked holding the stick and banging it on the ground.
So here we are, just the two of us on this hike through the forest.  Cayden was content walking for the most part.  I carried him on my shoulders when he became tired. He would point out the flowers and want to smell them.  Which reminded him of Ferdinand the Bull.  He would start quoting passages from the book that related to the book.

We were walking around a corner and up on the hill was a deer.  Cayden excitedly called out, “Activate  deer power.”  He then talked about the deer for the next 15 minutes or so and how he activated his deer power.  For him this hike was about getting out and just enjoying what was around him.

He seems to do really well with outside open space.  He likes the room to run and explore what is out there.  We don’t have a huge back yard, not a small one either.  But he always finds the rocks or the vegetable plants and ends up having to come inside for either wrecking the plants or throwing rocks.

However, on this hike he wasn’t contained by a fence.  He was able to walk freely (mostly) on the dirt road up the mountain.  He had his little walking stick, snacks, water and space to roam.  His body enjoyed the movement and the extra work it took to get up the mountain.  His balance and overall calmness was noticeable during and after the hike.

We ended going on the trail for a while.  According to my Fitbit tracker we went up roughly 38 flight of stairs.  It measures 1 flight as an increase of 10 feet in elevation in a certain amount of time.  I’m sure we probably went a little more than that, but that is still quite a bit for little legs.  We walked over 14 thousand steps, okay, I walked over 14 thousand steps.  Cayden enjoyed a ride most of the way down the hill.

It was nice to have time just with Cayden.  No distractions, not other events taking place.  Just the two of us exploring the outdoors.  Activating creature powers and enjoying the deer and other animals.