Great Day!

Today was really an exceptional day for my grandkids, Mandy and me!

We went over the mountain, towards Altoona, to the DelGrosso Amusement Park, located in Tipton, PA. (That's right outside of Tyrone.)

The reason for this trip was because today was a picnic sponsored by Cen-Clear, the agency that supplies all the therapists that Maya had and that Kurtis is being seen by now, plus they run the school program over near Clearfield that Maya has been attending since last September.

And, I'm here to tell you that we ALL -kids, Momma and Grandma alike -had a fantastic time!

I was kind of leery about going, considering the events earlier this week with my health and also, that the antibiotics I am taking are supposed to be pretty strong, also can be a bit tricky too according to my doctor. She warned me that the one in particular can often cause issues of nausea, upsetting the apple cart a little lower in the digestive tract, severe headaches, blurred vision -a whole host of nasty little things ya know. Plus, the directions sheet I received with them also said to avoid any type of steady contact with bright sun, etc. Sheesh! I prayed all winter for warm, sunny days and now, I can't enjoy 'em. Gimme a break here will ya!

Well, I have been lucky thus far in that I've had no side effects to either prescription but I will say this much, I did try my ever-loving best to stay in the shade whenever possible and I also did something else I'm not usually inclined to do too. I carried around a bottle of water that Mandy had stashed away in the freezer and sucked on that every chance I got. (I'm not normally all that much into water swigging, ya see. Coffee is generally my drink of choice -or maybe iced tea.) But anyway, I did try to follow through on the instructions my doctor gave me and that the brochure said would probably work better too in tandem with the meds.

Obviously, since I'm posting this now, everything came together, worked out fine and I'm feeling great tonight and way, way better than earlier this week. Still have some little bits of pain and tenderness in the abdomen but nothing near like it was. No sirree Bob! Not. At. All!

Maya hit the ground running at the park as she flitted from one kiddy ride to another, expressing her wishes to ride this, ride that and ride she did! Even little Kurtis managed to ride several of the kiddy rides too and for the most part, he did quite well. Only had a couple of little spells where he bucked completely about riding or was a little scared initially. Mandy and I were both so proud of each of the kids. It was truly an awesome sight to watch them enjoying the park, just having so much fun.

Between Mandy and I manning my lovely little Kodak digital camera, we came home with numerous photos and quite a few little videos of the kids on this ride or that one. Much as I would love to show you each and every picture and all those videos, I'm not gonna do that. Well, not all of them, not tonight, anyway. You'd be here till the cows come home watching little videos ranging from 10 seconds up to close to 3 minutes of little boats or cars or airplanes or flying fish, traveling in a circle and every so many seconds, you get a glimpse of Maya or Kurtis having so much fun.

But I have to tell you this too. While watching my sweet little grandkids being entertained so well, often I would find my self smiling or even cracking up laughing at them and at the same time, feeling that I also wanted to cry too. It was so wonderful to see them at their finest and their highest level of enjoyment -one of those kind of sensations ya know - that it brought tears or nearly came to that with me. Kind of like how many of us get all teary-eyed seeing a bride as she comes down the aisle or recognizing a family member or close friend as they graduate too. Ok, I'm a sentimental slob and I freely admit to that but I'm betting many of your reading this react the same way as I do too! Am I right?

But something else struck me too. Since the Cen-Clear agency works with kids of a wide variety of ages and issues, as I watched our kids and others running around, just major smiles every where, it dawned on me that if those who don't know anything at all about these kids and their particular problems, odds are you would never be able to differentiate in most cases between which kids were autistic or ADD or ADDH or had other concerns based on their appearance, their exuberance in the day's activities.

Now, I know since the pictures I took all have either Kurtis or Maya in them - sometimes both of them -and those who have been reading here for any length of time are now pretty familiar with what my sweet babies look like so you know automatically then, ok -these two are autistic. But look at the other children in the photos too and tell me if you can discern what any of these other kids have that requires them being considered "special needs" kids. Betcha can't do it! I know I can only tell that two children in the photos I took are autistic like Kurtis and Maya and that is only because those two kids are members of Maya's class group!

And all I could think of because of not being able to see beneath the surface of all these other kids but seeing them, like Kurtis and Maya, just having a fantastic time, looking just like all other little kids of their particular age group, wouldn't it be wonderful if everyone could see the beauty that lies in each of these kids and not earmark them as being different simply because you KNOW there is something under the surface that requires special attention, therapy, special programs to enable these kids to reach their full potential in life?

And please, if you can, explain to me your logic there then too!

It was rather comical when we first arrived in the park that the first person we encountered who we knew was Pam, Maya's teacher. And Maya's reaction to seeing Pam was something that really startled all three of us - Mandy, Pam and me - as Maya immediately latched on to Mandy's leg and began crying on seeing Pam. This took all of us by surprise because we know Maya loves Pam, just adores her, often hangs on her every word, movement, etc. Why then would she seem fearful and begin to cry? We finally figured it must have been just that Maya didn't really understand who all would be there today and she was kind of taken aback at seeing Pam. By the time we left, Pam and her family were also the last people we saw and spoke to and then, it was a whole different story as Maya was her normal self with Pam then as she answered questions Pam asked her about what she'd done, how much fun she'd had and then, waved good bye to her like she would do any other given day.

When Maya spied a couple of the kids from her class, I wish you could have just seen how her eyes lit up -just sparkled. It was such a terrific feeling seeing her behave the way just about every other 4 1/2 year old would do upon seeing a friend, a comrade in arms, so to speak.

Well, my plans to post some photos and/or videos tonight have just been dumped. Not by me but apparently Blogger doesn't want me to share any of this stuff with you today with this post so just think of all the great pictures and videos you have to look forward to seeing sometime in the near future!

And, since Thursday -today or tomorrow -however you care to think of that day this week -is going to be another one filled with more running around as I have a doctor's appointment for a general check-up and some other tests (routine junk) with my family doctor, I'm gonna close this for tonight and head off to beddy-bye.

And with that, I wish you all a good night, good day, whatever the case may be.