Nature Camp and Pirate Day

For most parents, summer camp is an easy decision.  Not so much when your kid has special needs and you just aren't sure how much of a distraction he will be for the class.  I want him to participate and have fun, but I also don't want my choices making other kids (including my older child) have less of an experience.  This is a hard choice and as a parent of a child with some special needs, I have to weigh in on taking chances for him and not putting him in places where he is just not ready and people don't know how to help him.

We took the risk.

I have to give huge kudos to the instructor and her volunteer helpers for giving my kids a wonderful week in camp.  Graeme had so much fun with all of the activities and adventures and they saw Liam engaging and participating more each day.  They worked with his strengths and when needed, took him for a short walk before jumping right back into the regular class activity.  

I was around for 3 out of the 4 days while the boys were in camp so that if it wasn't working, I could take Liam and Graeme could finish out the day.  Liam finished each day stronger and the one day that I did have him just a few minutes early he was telling me, "go, go, go" the whole time that he needed to be back in class.

Since their final day was also a speech therapy day, we had a long day out by using the time between for some lunch and a cool play area.  So as our "fun Friday" rolled around, I debated about our day.  Liam had a home observation visit (which went well and we are ready to talk options for preschool for him next week) mid-morning so going somewhere "big" wasn't happening this week.  Since our week had been quite busy, we went with staying home and playing pirates!

Graeme got new pirate sheets for his bed (aka his pirate ship) and so the boys started the morning with an epic pirate sword duel on the ship.  Liam mutinied and took over, so Graeme forced him to walk the plank (ok, I picked him up and moved him off the bed).  

Next on our agenda, Graeme and I made a pirate themed collage that we are going to frame and hang in his room.  He had fun spreading the sand, "painting" on the mod-podge, or fog as he called it, and helping me hot glue on the doubloons and shells.  We are waiting for the final layer of mod-podge to dry but we like the results.  

Of course, we threw in some Pirate Fairy and Captain Hook and Graeme has grabbed our copy of Peter Pan and is "reading" it as reference material (we also truly started reading the Wizard of Oz together this morning :-).  He has built a massive Lego Jolly Roger and has been dressed as Captain Peg Leg Jack for the entire day.  

Looking forward to another week of adventures in parenting with the boys next week.