Mush!

Even though there were a few bumps in the road this weekend (literally!) we accomplished the objective we set out to do- we rode on a dog sled! Just getting to Lake Placid was an adventure this weekend. I've never seen sleet like what was falling up there yesterday afternoon and evening! Things didn't exactly go as planned- Sam had some diffifult moments, starting with us leaving abruptly on Friday as soon as he arrived home from school. He had expected to leave Saturday morning, but we wanted to get a jump on the coming stormy weather. He had a couple of meltdowns on the trip- not wanting to use a quieter voice in a restaurant or hotel room, rejecting any food put in front of him, wanting to watch a TV show that wasn't even on, putting his hands over his ears any time Tom or I said something he didn't want to hear. I find it tough to be patient when we had planned the whole trip just for him and he was finding fault with all of it! I guess we should just be glad that most trips we go on turn out for the best, and we usually do ride out a few storms! The weather was truly horrible- even in a place where they are used to severe winter weather. We put the dog sled ride off until today so the weather had a chance to improve a little. Luckily it did- this morning it was only snowing. We had a nice morning-leisurly breakfast (Sam even ate 1/4 of a bagel!), took another swim in the hotel's indoor pool, packed up and headed for the frozen Mirror Lake. There was no one waiting in line for the dog sled rides (wonder why in the middle of the blizzard!), so Sam got to go around twice- once with each of us. I know he really enjoyed it, and will enjoy telling his friends and teachers in school about it. I supposed that's what its all about. We hear him get excited about trying something, and we want to make it happen for him. I don't want his anxiety about changes in scenery and routine to stop us from helping him to experience things. I just want to be able to better recognize the pattern here- a period of out and out rejection of the activity "No- I don't want to stay over at nana's OR go dog mushing", which leads to a kind of acceptance that it is happening, despite the protests, to a few more meltdowns along the way, just thrown in for good measure to make sure we know he's not giving up without a fight. When we are in the moment, hearing for the millionth time how he doesn't want to do something, it's hard to remember that there is a pattern to all this. And RDI training more often than not just goes out the window! So, while I would not give the weekend a score of perfect 10, I'd have to give it at least a 7. Hey, we did what we set out to do, we got away, we navigated a minefield of bad weather, and we got to go swimming during a blizzard- how cool is that????