Over the last few years our son, Charlie, has worked extremely hard during his therapies to learn skills that make life a little easier for him, to help him understand this world a little better. In fact, our entire family has worked hard these last few years to figure out what works best for us. We also added a service dog into the mix, Sunny, who has helped in more ways than we could have ever imagined.
Friends, we recently got home from a 10 day road trip around Minnesota! 10 days traveling with our boys in our airstream camper and it couldn't have gone better than it did. Since we incorporated our camper into each summer from the time the boys were little, it's like a second home to them. It's where they are comfortable, especially Charlie who relies on things that are familiar to him. Because of it's familiarity, when we do travel, we prefer to use our camper rather than various hotels. For 10 days we stayed in 3 different campsites, visited 5 different state parks, hiked, fished, visited the Mississippi headwaters, spied a beaver in it's natural habitat, had nightly campfires, did a lot of stargazing and constellation identification, went geocaching, read a lot of Minnesota history, made lots of s'mores and even did homeschool on the road!
Some things we think helped to make the trip go smoothly:
1. Every day we were very clear on our plan for the day and planned out things we knew the boys would love to do. Sometimes we had to go over the plan several times. Sometimes our plans changed mid-day due to circumstances we had no control over and during those times we did our best to use skills we've learned to help us manage (rigidity is so hard some times).
2. We stayed busy, but also recognized when the boys had had enough and planned in down time. One thing Tyler and I have learned over the years is to know our limits, when we can push those limits and when we need to stick to those limits. I think we did really well reading those limits last week.
3. We involved Sunny with everything. Since Sunny is Charlie's service dog, she goes everywhere he goes. Sunny is Charlie's constant and something he can rely on to never change. Sunny helped immensely with transitions throughout each day, being a constant when plans did change, calming with deep pressure therapy, riding safely in the truck, walking safely in public and so many other ways. Honestly, we aren't sure the trip would have gone as well as it did if Sunny was not here for Charlie.
4. We took lots of breaks. Charlie has always had trouble riding in the car, especially for long periods of time. His threshold is about 1 hour before things start to go South. Going into this trip Tyler and I knew we would need to take as many breaks as possible to avoid meltdowns every time we were in the vehicle. Taking breaks along with having snacks, drinks and activities was a huge help.
5. Lots of patience and flexibility. Tyler and I have learned to be extremely flexible over the years. Plans we make often don't go the way we imagine. Many times we may need to 'divide and conquer.' This often means one parent taking one child and the other parent taking the other two to do different activities. It's not ideal, but sometimes it's what works best. Or sometimes there are activities we would like to do with the boys and at the moment we go to do them, it may not be the right time or fit into how our day is going. We've learned to accept these circumstances and roll with it.
I say this to tell you to never give up. Never stop trying. And if you haven't started working towards those scary goals yet, make a plan to take the first step. We didn't get to this point easily. It's taken a lot of hard work, a lot of trial and error and a whole bunch of other tries that didn't end well. But this trip worked. This trip was so much fun and so much good wrapped into 10 days.
