Thursday, December 1, 2016

beach walk and letters

I took the children out to Vbeach for the first time since the hurricane.  There are a lot of changes like the boardwalk being closed because the stairs are gone.  The live guard tower that was substantial, not just a red zig zag of boards, it's gone.  The contour of the beach is very different.  The children had resisted going on a beach walk for the last few weeks because I wouldn't let them wear swim clothes or have permission to get wet.  Finally we went and they behaved so great.  I had no camera with me so I just have to savor the memory of the beautiful water, and nimble children scampering over rocks.  It is such a wonderful natural playground.  And they didn't even push limits and get all covered in sand. 


This is the table slide.  We put it up every month or so.  The kids have a blast until they drive us crazy or hurt someone, or both.  Then we put it away until the next time I feel like giving them happy childhood memories.  A lot of what we do is so that the children can look back and feel like they had a happy childhood.  There are plenty of unhappy times, like on Saturday morning when they have to clean their rooms.  But hopefully the unhappy times help them develop grit.  : )  Or at the least, they are developing a taste for a room that smells ok and you can walk in.

I wrote a letter to my dad today.  I love letters.  I've written love letters...  When P and I were dating and engaged back in 1999 we wrote letters.  Email was a thing but letters could be written anywhere and anytime, bit by bit until you were ready to send them.  Long distance was still expensive so we talked once a week for 1 hour, or less if we were busy or traveling with marching band.  So I'm grateful for those letters we wrote when we were in class and waiting between activities.  I know I am more careful with my words in letters.  I am also more loquacious in letters.

G recently graduated from speech therapy.  My impression is that his language is so excellent that the pediatric office doesn't have much to do.  He just needs to slow down and speak clearly, which he can do.  So according to their metrics, they've done all they can.  And they have.  Speech therapy has been a wonderful safe place for G to continue speech routines regardless of whether he was feeling oral outside of that setting.  He is a major code switcher now.  He signs at school and speaks in most other settings.  Even at church he has started to sim-com or voice when there are no deaf people in the room.  For the primary program he signed and spoke his parts.

So with that newly freed hour I hope to take the kids to have some beach therapy.

1 comment:

Okishdu said...

Throughout my marriage I usually lived far away from my parents. Phone calls were reserved for emergencies and there were no such things as email or Facebook. As a result I wrote weekly letters and looked forward to letters from my family, although it was almost always my mother who responded. I didn't complain about things other than weather. Anyone reading those letters would have very little idea of some of the trials I went through. But that meant that when I sat down to compose a letter I had to deliberately consider all the good and positive things in my life instead of dwelling on the bad things. That was actually very good for me.
Table slides are fun.