Lucas Camilo

It turns out that the beautiful, warm spring days we experienced last week in Seattle were just a cruel April fools joke.  Over the last few days it’s been raining a lot, but that hasn’t stopped Lucas and I from escaping for a few walks during the brief respite from downpours.

Krista is gone this weekend on a retreat so Lucas and I have spent a lot of quality time together.  As much as I enjoy reading books and playing games around the house, it is nice to get out for walks in the park, and the highlight of the weekend was bumping through the mud in Mt. Baker park on Saturday.  We couldn’t help but feel very fortunate that such natural beauty exists within a few blocks of our home.  Below are some pictures.

It will be great once Lucas masters his power chair and is able to maneuver the sidewalks on his own (he’s still practicing at school and is probably some months away from that however.)  In the meantime, I love flipping his manual wheelchair around so that he faces me when the two of us go on longer walks .  On Friday we went to the grocery store, a recent favorite of his, and spent a half hour counting apples, pears, strawberries and squash in the isles of Safeway – luckily, no one seems to mind, even when I entertain Lucas by juggling the various fruits and vegetables.  On the way home I started whistling some of Lucas’s favorite songs and then asking him to identify them.  Halfway through the first verse of Mister Rabbit he would get a big smile on his face, and when I finished he would jump ahead of me by asking “what song was that?” and then quickly answering “Mister Rabbit!”  We went through a dozen songs and he got nearly all of them.  You could chalk it up to my expert whistling but it’s mostly that he’s just a clever little dude.

Nona and Aunt Ashley made separate visits today which gave me a chance to get some stuff done while they read books.  Lucas and I are excited for Krista to get back later tonight.  As we’ve both written about before, it’s great to spend time alone with Lucas but also exhausting given how demanding his needs can be at times.  Next week is Lucas’s spring break and we’re all looking forward to taking a trip to the Olympic peninsula for a few days.  Hopefully it won’t rain the whole time!