Going to the Theater

In July, a community theater was performing Beauty and the Beast. This is one of Kevin's top five favorite movies and I was really excited to take him to see it. We had taken him to his first theater performance last spring and it had been a successful outing. For Beauty and the Beast, we knew a couple girls from church performing in the show as Spoons during the big song "Be Our Guest" - one of Kevin's favorites. My sister and her kids came up for a visit to go see it with us. I wasn't anticipating any problems. I didn't even think to bring the good noise canceling headphones because this was just after VBS when he tolerated a lot of noise and stimulation. Luckily I keep a backup pair of headphones in my bag because we needed them. It was too much for him. It was a bigger production than we had been to in the spring and so at first I thought it was the bigger sound system and the larger audience clapping. But he was still overstimulated after I got him to the back of the theater. I didn't want to miss seeing the "Be Our Guest" performance and luckily Kevin did perk up a little during it. But I think what was bothering him was the live performance of some of the scenes when characters are acting angry, sad, or scared - that was making Kevin upset and we were sitting really close to the stage so it must have made it more real for him. I guess it's actually good that he is having those emotions when watching something like that because he didn't used to (he used to laugh when someone was sad) but now we just need to give him more experiences to see live performances. We did end up seeing the entire performance but scooted out immediately afterwards. I was glad my sister was there to help and they even sat in the back with us for the second act - which her kids said they preferred not being so close to the stage too.

So that was the negative experience of going to the theater. But we made up for it by finding out that Kevin now likes to go to the movie theater. Before this summer Kevin had been to the movie theater a total of 3 times in his almost 12 years of life. I probably should be embarrassed to say this...during the months of August and September Kevin saw 7 movies! We saw the much anticipated Finding Dory with Grandma on her birthday along with Aunt Sarah and Cousin Ethan. We also went to see the new Pete's Dragon the next month with Grandma. I also found out that less than 30 minutes from us, there is a movie theater that shows old Disney movies for $5. We went to see Mulan (Kevin's 2nd favorite movie) and took one of his helpers with us. We watched Cars with his Aunt Sarah and Cousin Ethan. We finally found some time to bring Dad along with us and saw Aristocats (this movie includes the actor voice of Phil Harris who also does the voice of Baloo in the 1967 Jungle Book). And because I thought these old Disney movies were just a summer a thing - I took Kevin to see Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs the last week of summer. But then a couple weeks later, Jon and I were going to go on a date to see a movie and I discovered that the movie theater was showing Kevin's number one favorite movie of all time - The Jungle Book (the animated 1967) version. So we canceled the sitter and turned our date into a trio. It's so great to have this new fun thing to do with Kevin. So if you ever want to see one of your old favorite Disney movies, we would love to go together.

CVNP Summer 2016

Some of our summer visits in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park

Swimming at Deb & Len's pool

Summer Photos 2016

Fairport Harbor

One of Kevin's fabulous sitters!

Summer Ice Cream (Bananas & Peaches)

Go Steelers

Happy 12th Birthday - October 6, 2016

 Gulp! Kevin is 12 years old!!!

Kevin's birthday was on Thursday, which is our volunteer day at the nursing home. After Songs of Faith we passed out some treats we brought to share with our new friends and played a balloon toss. Kevin even tolerated having the group sing "Happy Birthday" to him. He especially loved the helium balloons he got to take home.

A couple other favorites to make his day special were birthday videos from his cousins and FaceTime calls with family.

But probably his favorite was getting some much needed free time to play at home after a very busy week. I love it when Kevin plays. He will busy himself going up and down the basement steps. Sometimes bringing toys up from the basement or toys from the family room to the basement. I love hearing him play with his shake and go cars and watching them go. And I absolutely love seeing toys scattered about in a mess on the floor because it means he is playing. He will clean them up but sometimes I like to leave it that way because it makes me smile to know that he did it. Today, he surprised me by asking me to put a music cd in the player. All good things! Maybe his play time will get even more purposeful when he has some free time now that our schedule is so much more busy going out of the house than we are used to.

On Friday, we met Kevin's Aunt Sarah and Cousin Ethan at the Cleveland Zoo.

And on Saturday, the three of us spent the day together by going to Ohio University Homecoming. Jon and I met our freshman year at OU on Homecoming weekend - 25 years ago! This was Kevin's first OU visit. He had big smiles while watching the OU marching band in the parade. We walked around the campus and uptown. While uptown, Kevin and I were outside people watching - while Jon was t-shirt shopping. As we were sitting there, three male college students came up to Kevin. The first guy was walking with forearm crutches and he had some encouraging words for Kevin. As he left, I said a prayer of blessing for him as I thought about all the walking around campus that is required. The other two students were more of a surprise to me. They were just walking by with their friends and made the effort to stop and shake Kevin's hand. It gives me hope for the future.

I'm hoping that my next upcoming posts will be some catch up from the summer.