July Jots

Summer arrived in July, with hot humid weather in all its glory. It felt good to me, although I was thankful for the luxury of indoor air conditioning. AC is crucial for Oliver as he runs hot, and develops quite a sweat even when it is only mildly warm.

The Fourth
July started off with a bang. The 4th of July may be our country's birthday, but it is also Oliver's cousin Mariah's birthday - a much bigger deal! This year she turned six. My sister Caitlin had a big birthday gathering for her, and Ollie seemed to enjoy the ruckus. And as you can tell from the photos, Ollie's pumpkin chair has been extremely useful. He sat it in for books with his grandfather, he sat in it for the gift opening, he even sat in it in the sandbox out back!

It was great to be able to plop the chair in the sandbox and let Oliver experience the sand on his feet (and down his pants!) It was his first time experiencing sand like this, and it was interesting to see how serious he was about it, taking in the feeling and sensations of the sand quite intently.

Sapsucker Woods
Shami and I have always liked to go for walks together. While we were dating we would hike the many trails around Ithaca. We still try to get out every once in a while with Oliver, to the more tame wheel-friendly trails nearby. One evening we decided to walk some of the wooded trails in Sapsucker Woods. The bugs made it a bit difficult, but it was a lovely walk nonetheless. It has been years since Shami and I had been on this trail, and we were excited to stumble upon an Andy Goldsworthy sculpture. He is one of my all-time favorite artists, and it was a thrill to quite unexpectedly find this treasure!

Swimming
This summer we have had a handful of Oliver's PT session in a pool. Ollie is still not particularly happy to go in the water. He gets quite tense and nervous about it. But I think each time he loosened up a little bit, and the last time we went he actually relaxed for some portions of his session. I hope that one day he will enjoy the water, and be able to relax and splash and have fun in a pool, aside from the PT aspect of it. Ollie's favorite part of his pool sessions was reading how deep the water was!