He Wanted Halloween

Saturdays, Cruise has Therapeutic Horseback Riding in Highland. He is always excited to go and just LOVES to ride his horse. However, this past Saturday when we got to Courage Reins, they had decorated the foyer for Halloween. Something funny about Cruise is that his favorite holidays are Halloween and Christmas; only because of the awesome decorations. He has a thing for pumpkins and skulls.

Anyway, I got his helmet on him and out to his horse, but the whole time while he rode, he just kept looking out the window at the pumpkin and skull lights. He couldn't focus and just didn't want to ride. He wanted to play with Halloween stuff! So of course the whole lesson was a failure and ended with him whining and trying to get off of his horse.

Since I just had Cruise with me and Dave was home with sick baby Jett, I decided to be spontaneous and take Cruise to Thanksgiving Point. After all, he wanted Halloween!

We went to the Animal Farm where they were having Barnyard Boo. They had all sorts of fun activities for little kids: face painting, ring toss, cookie decorating, story telling, carriage rides, etc. They also had pony rides but after sitting in the line for a minute or two, I looked at Cruise and said, "What is your mom doing?! You just did this!"

We were there for about two hours and it was one of the best two hours I've had with Cruise in a long time. Sometimes I think not just as parents, but as Special Needs parents, we spend so much time and energy trying to "manage" our children. We sometimes forget that our Special Needs kids are...KIDS! Just like any other typical developing child, they just want some time to have fun, to be themselves, and to choose what they want to do. So I made it a point to just let Cruise do whatever he wanted (as long as it wasn't terribly dangerous or fatal). We had a blast and Cruise smiled the entire time.  I didn't take a ton of pictures because I was just enjoying everything that I kept forgetting to snap a bunch.

We started out feeding the animals.

Then goofed around in this little "town" they had.

Of course, fascination with a skull.

Then we decorated cookies. Okay, well, Cruise just ate the frosting that he was supposed to spread on his cookie and then ate the cookie, but hey! Who cares?! There was a radio in the room there with some music playing, so Cruise got up and just started dancing! It was pretty much the cutest thing. I love this kid.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Then we bought some water and some mini homemade donuts and Cruise sat and ate while I waited in the line for the face painting. But once it was his turn for his face to be painted, he of course picked a bat and kept saying, "Batman!"

Cruise munching on his donuts and water while I waited in line.

Then we went on the carriage ride which was Cruise's favorite thing. He could've sat on that thing all day. The only time he cried while we were there was when he had to get off.

I don't know why it has taken so long for me to do something like this with Cruise. I think because I feel like I spend a ton of time with him already, that any more time would just be overkill. But the truth is, I may spend time with him, but I am not always with him in his world. We spend so much time "managing" him in our world, that we neglect to remember that what is most important is enjoying him in his. After all, he's only little once.