Summer Plans
May 22, 2009 by Jeff Stimpson
Filed under Health
Our summer plan calls for water parks.
Image: Spakattack, flickr.com
We still don’t know how Alex will react to not going to day camp. Much more important than the cost of savings was that Alex has always seemed to enjoy few parts of camp. Camp theme days seemed to leave him cold. He’d often get out of the pool before swimming was over; he’d spend a lot of arts and crafts period running from light switch to light switch in the cabin; he seemed okay with concept of baseball, but always wanted to carry around the ball, bat, and glove (they are, after all, a set). The staff was great, the camp lush and lovely, and his shadowing counselor was, I think, his first crush. But all he ever seemed to like at camp was Flying Squirrel, a bungee-like contraption that bounced kids high in the air.
He seems to love school, however, and sped summer school in New York is a lot of play and recess anyway. Surely he’ll be okay with that (even though three years ago he cried on the first day of summer school)? I do wish we could ask him, but as usual with semi-verbal Alex it’s a matter of guesswork, watching sharply for clues, then probably getting it all wrong anyway.
He sits on the couch and silently flips through last summer’s camp scrapbook. “Summer school this year, Alex,” I say. “You’ll go to school and we’ll do stuff on the weekends.”
Coney Island’s water flume was always a favorite. Alex’s rec programs have also gone to water parks (so did day camp, occasionally). He would sit patiently in the front of the big log boat and wait for the heart stopping drop and tidal wave splash at ride’s end. A whole park of such rides should ease the pain of no Flying Squirrel.
Our plan calls also for zoos, beaches and seaports of Connecticut and Rhode Island, fire museums. Maybe we’ll even run him out to Sesame Place and watch his little mind be blown by a 6-foot Elmo.
“Alex, school this summer.”
“School,” he says, flipping the pages of the scrapbook.
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See these options and tips for summer travel and vacations with people with autism.
