Pictures at the Park!

Well, Blogger cooperated with me in posting the videos of the Irish Step Dancers who entertained people at the Children's Fair in Bellefonte last Saturday, so I figured I would give it a go to see if it will continue to behave and allow me to post some of the pictures -maybe even a "ride" video of our day yesterday at DelGrosso's over by Tyrone, PA!

I'm still celebrating what a great day it was and how much both the kids really did enjoy themselves! Only one meltdown the entire day there with Maya and it was actually a very minor, very small one. Really incredible.

By the way, some of the other children on these pictures are classmates of Maya's but I am not identifying any of them here. Mainly because I would like people to see -and hopefully understand a bit better -that many -maybe even most -autistic individuals don't look any different from the majority of other folks.

They are children, teens, adults who have a learning disorder and some do have other issues or physical problems as well, but even so, they are all people, have feelings like everyone else and many of them also know and understand more than those around them realize too.

Don't judge them because they are different. Judge them as the beautiful individuals each one of them is, will be too someday.

And please, if someone says their child or grandchild is autistic, don't just assume that the person will never be able to learn, to read, to speak, to ride a bike, to go to college, to be self-sufficient and many, many more things that often are just taken for granted.

I don't say that and direct it at any of my regular readers as I have never had anyone post anything about my grandkids that wasn't loving and accepting and understanding of how wonderful they are, so don't think my above comments are directed at you. They are meant for those who don't know me, my grandkids, other individuals who have this disorder and most of the time, they just assume autism means the person can do nothing, is probably mentally challenged or physically deformed, etc. It just ain't so!

You, my regular readers, know and accept my posts, my pictures of Maya and Kurt, and many of you also have walked with me, watching them both learn - Maya especially -so much since I began this blog. You've all supported me, shown so much love, caring and consideration -and acceptance too -of them and just would like as many people as possible that I can reach to see the same things you see in them as I do -as their parents, aunts, uncles, other siblings and other grandparents do.

If these posts make a difference and help anyone along the way to understand this disorder, then I will be one really happy camper!

Maya on the little boat ride. She very much enjoyed this one -just like she did a year ago when we were at this park for my Dad's family reunion.
The elephant ride was the first one Mandy put Kurtis on and as you can see by his expression, initially he wasn't all too impressed with it.

The carousel was another big hit with Maya. I really love how pretty she looks in this picture!

This one, of me, holding Kurtis on the carosel -the way he was looking up at me, giving me such great eye contact here, is so neat to begin with and when you can really catch him in action doing that, means even more.

Maya and another little fellow sharing one of the racecars. Also a big hit with her.

Maya thoroughly enjoyed the elephant ride too though -much happier than her brother!

This was actually Maya's first ride of the day. Surprised me that she insisted on going on it as I wasn't sure how she would react to the spinning of these little cars.

Another picture of Kurtis and me on the carosel -which he very much liked.

Ah yes, Kurtis on the elephant ride again -and still frightened of it too!

But in the end, he calmed down and decided these little elephant things weren't all that scary after all!

Because the videos I took of the kids at the park all consist of watching a ride go around -basically -and if you've seen one kiddie ride going round and round and round, you've pretty much seen 'em all, haven't you? Therefore, I'm not going to try to post any of the park-ride videos. Some of them are very short -true enough, but others are like 2 minutes in duration and would take a long, long time to load them here too. That, plus blogger has also now decided to act up on me -again -and I really want to get to sleep sometime in this decade.

Sometimes, blogger just really aggravates the living daylights out of me, ya know!