An inspirational and fun blog about living life happily in the sandwich generation while raising a son with autism as best as I know how.. one day at a time!
"I am a Canadian, free to speak without fear, free to worship in my own way, free to stand for what I think right, free to oppose what I believe wrong, or free to choose those who shall govern my country. This freedom of heritage I plan to uphold for myself and all mankind."... John Diefenbaker, from the Canadian Bill of Rights, July 1, 1960.
HAPPY CANADA DAY 2011!
Here is our National Anthem, O Canada, along with some great photographs of our "our cherished land":
Today is the unofficial start of summer vacation! I hope all my readers from Canada and around the world have a wonderful and safe summer. I hope you all create some long lasting memories of good times with your family. Enjoy it!
I'm sure that all parents of school aged kids are breathing a collective sigh of relief that another year has ended and we can take some time now to relax! This week was exhausting for me and bitter/sweet. If the graduation on Wednesday was not enough to get me crying like a baby that my kids are growing up way too fast, yesterday I heard the final school bell ring and we took our last walk through the school yard, well I began crying all over again!! I no longer have children in junior elementary. They're growing up and I'm...getting old!! O.K. I have to stop that right now! Of course I'm still young - it's Canada Day, and I'm going to ride all the roller coasters etc. at Canada's Wonderland as is our tradition, and I'm really looking forward to that - so I guess I'm still a little bit young, at heart!
Today is also very exciting as my blog is officially one month old!! Hurray! I think that deserves a song - here's my favourite Happy Anniversary song of all time...probably yours too:
Oh that video is sooo cute!! I just want to say that I love writing my blog! Please email me (visit my profile for address!) with any comments or suggestions you may have, I'd love to hear about what I'm doing wrong....and right!
Other things may change us, but we start and end with the family....Anthony Brandt
Being physically active with your kids is both fun and healthy. I've always been terrible at most popular sports, however I do try to set a good example and participate where I can, even if it's just in simple ways. For example, I love going for long walks with my son, we both really enjoy it and it has two extra pluses..it's very easy and it's very free!!
Finding a sport activity for us all to do as a family is a challenge. The four of us have different interests and abilities. Most every Sunday we attend public swim together, but we're mostly all doing our own thing once we get in the pool. Plus, I'm finding I cannot keep up with my son (who I have to watch pretty closely) once the slide is turned on! This is when my 30 minute workout begins! I climb out of the pool, then climb up 20 steps, go down the curvy slide (while keeping track of where my son is as he goes down first), crash into the water, fix my swimsuit straps and undo my wedgie, then find my son and my way out to do it all over again! Yesterday in the course of 30 minutes we got 20 slides. Our all time record is 32 slides!! (my son keeps track). I know, you're getting tired just reading about it!
While all this is good exercise and it is...fun, I'd like to find another activity we could do perhaps as a team, that's fun, easy and all year round. I'm thinking now about us forming a bowling team and entering a family league. My husband and I used to be pretty good bowlers (though that was a long time ago!), and we can teach our kids the basics...currently they are both using a technique that looks about like this:
Of course, we all aspire to be at the level of Fred Flintstone!!
I'll let you know in future blogs how "our team" is doing. I would also love to hear about the sports and activities you do as a family. I'm always looking for new ideas to try out!
Also, if any of you are interested in signing your children up to learn a new sport this summer, in a non-competitive environment, where they can gain self confidence and social skills, plus improve their strength, gross motor, balance and co-ordination, I have just learned about a program called "sportball", it is all across the greater Toronto area, and they have "adapted" programs for ages 5-17, to include children with autism, asperger's, etc. It looks quite interesting, here is the link to the adaptive programming:
