On Saturday, I got it in my head to visit the Pumpkin Festival held every year at Cal Poly Pomona. We were supposed to meet up with our local 4H group, but parking was awful, and we ran late. Looping through the parking lot, stress was rising, and tempers were flaring, and Jon and I started snapping at one another. Neither of us is at our best when we don't know where we are going...and we are late. We stuck with it, and finally did find a parking place, and it was relatively close. Score!
It was almost 11 a.m. and we were supposed to meet our group at 10:30. We looked around, but there were so many people we never did find them. Despite the heat, we went right to the pumpkin patch and it was really fun. I enjoyed traipsing through with the kids and picking out pumpkins. I also took a couple of pictures that I liked.
Later in the afternoon, we headed over to the Insect Fair, behind the pumpkin patch. There were two buildings full of bugs and spiders. I overcame some of my fears. I held a tarantula! And a scorpion. And...wait for it.... I held a hissing cockroach! I know, right? Me! I am a badass, as you know. And I have photographic evidence, of at least the tarantula.
JBear, of course, was in his element. I may have a future entomologist up and coming. JBean struggled a bit with fear, and truly, arachnophobia is something many
have. Fear of spiders is on the top 5 fears list. She shrank away whenever we were anywhere close to the spider tables, and I just went with it. I did make her see them from afar. The fact that they had a lot of er, dead bug specimens in glass cases, pinned down. This was actually good, because JBean was able to check them out without fear. And she almost touched a snake. She actually held a gecko!
Later I asked her: "Are you afraid of the bugs, JBean?"
"Yes," she answered.
"Are you as scared as you were when we first got here?"
"No, I don't think so... I liked the butterflies and the geckos."
We ended the day with a snow cone. The perfect ending to a perfect day. Now I know it seems that I bring autism into everything, but really, when we have days that just feel normal they are all the sweeter.
Have you done anything fun lately? Tell us!
T, who is feeling really optimistic today
2 sent chocolate:
I know just what you mean about the Autism making the nice, calm, "normal" days that much sweeter. We had a really nice weekend as well, with no meltdowns at all! After the week I had with G's fits, it was really a nice reprieve.
Us too. Wouldn't say that it turned out 'normal' but it was still pretty sweet. You know how it is, we adjust to the general tempo and hope for the best. Glad the bugs worked out as we have a lot of bug fans around here.
Cheers
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