Family

It was recently “Family Day” in Canada and it’s kind of nice to have a day in which we can celebrate and be together as families.

What does that look like for you?

How did you celebrate?

Did you do a special activity?

Every year before this day comes, I think about ways in which all of us can do something to mark the day and make it special. I often wonder why it is sometimes so difficult, but then I remember that we live with autism. Nothing is ever simple and can ever go without careful planning for all members of our family.

Most of the time I don’t think of our family as unique but sometimes on days like this, it comes to the forefront of my mind.

For our family, it would be nice to participate in the “free community activities” but most of the time it is not something that we do. It’s not because we don’t want to but because it’s often overwhelming with stimulation, crowds and way too much noise for our particular family.

So the other day as I glanced at activities that were in our community that came to my in box, I concluded that no matter how hard I tried to spin it, these were not going to work for us.

So what could we do?

My husband and I came up with a couple of ideas so that we could try to integrate both of our children into something we could all do together. We did look at some of the community activities and try to see if we could possibly do something that would be successful and fun for all of this. We concluded that this was not possible.

So in the end, we decided to go for a walk down by the lake. It was a sunny cold winter day perfect weather for a walk. We then decided we would watch a movie together in the comfort of our home. As long as we were all together this was all that really mattered.

I guess what I am trying to say is that it really doesn’t matter what you do to spend time together. It doesn’t matter where you go or don’t go. It’s all about doing what’s right and special for your particular family whatever that may be.

It’s nice to have a day set aside for family time! It’s a good reminder for all of us that family is important and we should celebrate all the time not just on one particular day.

Hope your day was special!