Special Mom’s blog

What things give you energy?

During summer I registered my special one for Special Olympics Long Distance Walking. As I have written multiple times, I definitely do 10,000 steps a day and walking is a very important aspect of my family.

Today was Western Pennsylvania Sectionals and my son’s coach told us he could participate in both two miles and one mile event. Yes, he could do both. We had walked on our own and for the past 4 weeks have done with the the team but autism and sensory processing disorder do not go hand in hand with competition.

Anyhow I called my Mom multiple times and asked her to pray for me and my boy. We reached late and missed the opening ceremony. I found out the two mile was at 12.45 pm and one mile walk was at 1.45 pm. I told the coach my son would do just a mile. We barely had any rain this summer but all of a sudden the temperature dropped and it was raining and drizzling and rain or shine the event kept going. My boy doesn’t even like getting his dress even a bit wet (changes clothes every day after brushing) and I was too nervous since we may have to walk in the rain.

Then we made the decision to do the 2 mile walk but already my shoes were wet and I knew I would have a tantrum from my boy. No, to my surprise he did not. He wore his race bib and we started the race. Me and my husband walked along with him, in fact we weren’t supposed to walk on the track but away from the white line😊.

The race started and we of course were last as the competitive group marched far ahead of us. But me and my boy followed his Dad and all the way along we had people cheering us. We were supposed to do two laps on a very complicated grass route and I was wondering if my boy would stop after a lap. Then we heard people shouting half way done and we continued and we finally finished the race in 43 minutes. As my boy was finishing, he stopped to clap along with others in the finish line as we shouted cross the line. Something that was missed to be photographed but one for our memories. By the way we were wet and soaking but I think my Mom’s prayers helped us, since it didn’t rain during the race😊.

My boy got his first ribbon today. Yes, he didn’t get a medal but a ribbon. I found that so valuable since he participated in a competitive race.

The coach came to us and told us, see you tomorrow during practice. She did scratch us off the mile event. Do you know how happy I felt. We had found a sport he enjoyed and can improve on that too.

We all love encouragement and sometimes more and as we raced we had people cheering us every quarter mile. I think that really gives us the energy to finish a task.

For me people’s kind words give me energy. It gives me the mental strength and with mental strength I can do any physical activity.