Not all heroes wear capes

This afternoon, I was picking up pizzas and had a short wait. As I was sitting inside staring out the window, a van pulled up. A dad got out and walked around to the sliding door. He opened it and let his 5-6ish year old daughter out. I watched them walk in. I knew right away she had autism. The way she was taking in the unique sights. The way she held her daddy’s arm. The way she self stimmed with her other hand. She was a beautiful little girl. 

It was not an unusual exchange in my world. I’m a pediatric OT. Have been for 22 years. Twenty years ago my career was dominated by cerebral palsy. Today it’s autism. 

This exchange will stay with me awhile, though, when I watched them leave. It had just begun to rain and as the dad was putting the pizza in the passenger seat, his daughter began to spin and dance in the empty parking spot next to the van.  Not sure if it was the air pressure changing, the feel of the rain, or the unique colors of the sky at that moment, but her world knew it was different and it was wonderful. I couldn’t hear him through the window but I could see him calling her name. He was holding the seatbelt. He looked tired. He walked over to her and I was fully expecting him to grab her hand and pull her out of her world and back into his. Into ours. 

But he didn’t. 

He stood at the end of the parking space she was dancing in to protect her from cars and ... He watched her. On a Friday afternoon when we all just want the weekend to start, he stood in the rain and shared her world.

After a minute that seemed like an eternity she stopped dancing and saw him standing there. She skipped over to him and took his arm the way she had earlier. He helped her into the van, buckled her in, and took her home to their unique, beautiful world.

An Observation

A moment ago, I was picking up pizzas and had a short wait. As I was sitting inside staring out the window a van pulled up. A dad got out and walked around to the sliding door. He opened it and let his 5-6ish year old daughter out. I watched them walk in. I knew right away she had autism. The way she was taking in the unique sights. The way she held her daddy’s arm. The way she self stimmed with her other hand. She was a beautiful little girl. 
It wasn’t an unusual exchange in my world. I’m a pediatric OT. Have been for 22 years. Twenty years ago my career was dominated by cerebral palsy. Today it’s autism. 
This exchange will stay with me awhile though when I watched them leave. It had just begun to rain and as the dad was putting the pizza in the passenger seat, his daughter began to spin and dance in the empty parking spot next to the van. Not sure if it was the air pressure changing, the feel of the rain, or the unique colors of the sky at that moment but her world knew it was different and it was wonderful. I couldn’t hear him through the window but I could see him calling her name. He was holding the seatbelt. He looked tired. He walked over to her and I was fully expecting him to grab her hand and pull her out of her world and back into his. Into ours. 
But he didn’t. 
He stood at the end of the parking space she was dancing in to protect her from cars and ... He watched her. On a Friday afternoon when we all just want the weekend to start, he stood in the rain and shared her world.
After a minute that seemed like an eternity she stopped dancing and saw him standing there. She skipped over to him and took his arm the way she had earlier. He helped her into the van, buckled her in, and took her home to their unique, beautiful world.

Noah's 11th Birthday and Downtown Obstacle Race

As always, Noah's birthday party was delayed due to the end of the school year crush. This year though we had a definite end goals. The Jones Center was having a kid's obstacle race the first weekend in June and Noah circled the date. He invited some buddies over for a sleepover and the next morning they would race. Friday night, we took them swimming. We celebrated low key on his actual birthday. He wanted cheesecake for both and we happily obliged. 

Campbell also wanted to race so she invited a friend to spend the night (with the dual purpose of keeping her occupied from her brother) and they raced also. The morning of the race came and they went off in waves by age. Campbell's race was a half mile. She came through the first few obstacles in the middle of the pack. At the midway point though there was one boy in front of her. At the end, though she was in the lead. The final obstacle was a slip and slide down the hill. She sat down and started scooting and I had a flash she was going to lose first place by not just sliding. Luckily the other 7 year olds didn't know what they were doing either. So first place for the baby girl. The best part of the video is the finish line volunteers cheering on that a girl was going to win! You'll have to excuse the end where Oliver finds a bone in the video :) 

Beginning

Ending

Noah is such a competitor. He walked the course 3 times when we first got there. He kept asking me if they were doing the route twice since it was twice as long as the 9 and under route. After the 75th time of me saying I didn't know, he asked somebody 5 minutes before his race. Of course they told him the second half of his race was on the other side of the Jones Center. He went pale because he hadn't scouted those obstacles. He was panicked but it didn't show. He won his age group and he wasn't messing around with his slip and slide finish. I kept it running to see the gap to second place. 

Beginning

Ending

Springdale Schools video on Related Services

I've gotten so many compliments on this video but honestly it's because Jayden is so stinking cute. It was a much more pleasant experience making this than i anticipated. Trent Jones and his crew are very professional. They let me ramble on and on for an hour then edited it down to 30 seconds so it makes me look much smarter than I am. it was nice of the district to put a spotlight on my department and a couple of our amazing kids. 

Related Services, Occupational and Physical Therapy are services provided in the Springdale Public Schools System that provide services needed for students to meet their Individual Education Plans.

Easter 2017

For Easter this year we went to Little Rock to spend time with the Johnsons. For Christmas, Jenna had bought Ann and Campbell tickets to Riverdance and this was the weekend of the show. We thought we would parlay it into an opportunity to visit our old pastor in his new digs in downtown Little Rock for Easter Sunday. We were able to cram a lot into a weekend. Jenna and I went on a bike ride with a date night, the kids got some fishing in, the ballet, I was able to take Noah to Pinnacle Mountain and climb the hard side (I swear it wasn't that hard 25 years ago) Easter eggs, and finally the kids got to see the Big Dam Bridge after a year or two giggling at it's name. Solid weekend. 

Spring Break 2017

Months ago Jenna had the idea to stay in a yurt at Petite Jean. We booked it so far in advance we really weren't counting down the days until it got here. There's something about camping that brings you together. I don't know if its the outdoors, being unplugged from our plugged in lives, or that you are just trapped together. I doubt it will be the same when they are teenagers but I pray it will be.  Gallery below.

Christmas 2016

I almost titled it "An Embarrassment of Riches." Christmas was a mixed bag this year. We got a good solid 19 day break from school, including a week before Christmas. So we got plenty of time to just hang out as a core group. Then we traveled for the south Arkansas tour. It felt rushed like it always does but it was still almost a week from home. We had nice visits with everyone. Jared and his girls were only in town for one day so we didn't get much time with them. Holly and the AZ crew weren't able to make it at all this year so that was a bummer too. It was also our first Christmas without toys, which Jenna celebrated but kind of struck me with melancholy. Happy holidays to everyone. I sincerely hope it was filled with love and joy. 

Buffalo River September 2014

I'm enjoying the new Memories section of Photos in iOS 10. This popped up as 2 years ago today and it made a video. I tweaked it for 2 minutes and BAM. 

I thought I'd share it here since it was so easy but if you are interested here is the link to the original trip. 

https://thesullivanadventure.squarespace.com/adventure/2014/9/29/bikes-blues-and-the-buffalo?rq=bikes%20blues

 

Summer 2016 Montage

The next iOS has a collections tab that pre-populates with pictures in a certain range. This one popped up today as the "The Past 3 Months." I took a look and other than the random opening picture of kayaks I think it did a pretty solid job of capturing our summer so I decided to throw it on here. No telling how good it could be with a little effort but then it goes back to that whole time thing :) 

Uploaded by Chad Sullivan on 2016-08-29.

Random Summer Fun-2016

Jenna has to keep reminding me we are only 2 weeks into June. It already feels like summer is flying by us!

Hello Spring-2016

Still not officially here but try telling that to my allergies.  Everything is blooming like crazy. I think our roses will have flowers before April at this rate.  This coming weekend the kids and I are planning our garden.  Mom wants tomatoes. Cam and I want cucumbers. We all want squash. Noah wants...carrots. Not sure about that one. This past weekend was a dream. Sunshine but enough rain earlier in the week knocked most of the allergens out of the air to make outside bearable. On Sunday we went for a family bike ride to downtown Springdale and let the kids play at the park and then we ate tacos at Black Apple Crossing cidery. It was a great afternoon.

Holidays 2015

The way Christmas fell this year was odd.  With it on a Friday the kids had 6 days off school before the big day.  On paper that sounds like a great relaxing time.  The reality was our procrastination struck and the week was full of errand running and last minute buying. <sigh>

We left for our south Arkansas tour on Christmas afternoon. A big mistake. "Here kids enjoy all the wonderful things you just got for Christmas........now pack them up and lets go on a 5 hour car ride." We should've foreseen that. We could've prepared before Christmas, but again our procrastination runs deep. 

Campbell's Christmas was Monster High overload. She loves her iPad too but I think her little Vtech smartwatch was the biggest hit over the holidays. I think her favorite part of the holiday was having so many girls to play with. Our neighborhood is boy heavy and with her cousins in Texarkana and in ElDorado being predominately female, the tables were turned. She spent the night in the same house as us once the entire trip. 

Everything Noah got paled next to his PS4. It took him all of 3 days to become better at FPS games than me and I'm no Halo slouch. I don't really mind him being better than me but he's become pretty adept at trash talking. His teachers are going to be in for a shock when he shows up to school with a controller in his mouth. There aren't many boys down south but he really liked being the big kid and teaching JI everything he knew from Skylanders to Minecraft. He also likes being the agitator for the girls. In fact I'll say he relishes the role much to his mother's dismay. Boys-what are you gonna do?

As always it was nice to see everyone let the kids be with all their extended family at once. We were only gone a week but it's an exhausting week. Totally worth it. 

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Halloween 2015

Guess I forgot to post this a few weeks back. This year's Halloween was a glimpse of the future.  Noah and his buddy Jackson decided they didn't want to Trick or Treat very far.  They wanted to come back home to hide and scare kids coming to the front door. So we did the 'hood and crossed over to Thornbury where there is a house that is half haunted house. We'd be back before you could blink. Until...

About the 5th house they ran into 3 girls from school. Immediately both boys' IQ dropped 40 points each and the decibel level of the girls' giggling raised about the same proportion. I asked if they were ready to go back to the house and scare kids and the lights just weren't on upstairs anymore.  2 miles and 40 houses later we arrived at the girls' final destination.  The boys gave ALL their candy to them and sauntered on home. Can't imagine what it's going to be like in a few years when they like girls.

Meanwhile Cam, ran into her best friend while we were still in our hood.  Jenna went with her and we maintained visual contact for a bit but eventually they went to a party while I kept hoofin it. We reunited at bedtime. Good times.

Photo by Amber Lanning

Uploaded by Chad Sullivan on 2015-11-16.

Fall 2015

We aren't in full orange and red yet but fall is definitely in the air.  This year at the corn maze/pumpkin patch the kids and I splurged and went for a helicopter ride.  It was amazing. Watching the video now, all I can think is how much better it's going to be in a couple of weeks when the colors of the trees explode.

If It's Not Written Down It Didn't Happen OR 10 Years of Blogging

It’s hard to remember the world ten years ago. It was way back when you paid for long distance and you paid by the minute for your mobile phone. It was before apps. It was before texting was easy. Facebook may have been invented but it was far from a thing. 

When Jenna became pregnant with Noah, we had zero family living close by. Every time something new happened, we’d have to share it multiple times with each family member.  Whoever we spoke to last got the short end of the stick. So I had a brilliant idea. Let’s start a website. A blog.  It’s this new cool thing people are doing.  We can post news and everyone can go to their computer and see what happened! As always Jenna was skeptical about anything I’m excited about, but she went ahead and gave me her blessings. 

On September 1, 2005, I made the first post. Today, I make my 863rd post. I had to manually add them up because I didn’t think the statistics page was correct. 863! It has grown just like our little family over the past ten years.  It went from a way to keep grandparents up to date on doctors appointments to a true history of our family. 

It has become a historical document to us in a way I can’t explain. It has been there for two births, hundreds of small victories, a couple of huge victories, and a few moments that threatened to crush us. It has also seen it’s fair share of deaths and chronicled the pain that goes along with life. Without knowing it or even trying, I created a written account of our adventure. 

I am thankful for everyone who has ever visited. I am thankful for a life where I get to wake up the two greatest children in the world each morning, watch them stretch, and hear “Good morning Dad.” Mostly I am thankful for my beautiful wife. She is and always will be the star of my story.