This weekend was awesome. I got to spend a lot of time with the kids and on Saturday I was mainly with my oldest. We went to Horseback early in the morning. The ride to horseback is almost an hour and we talk and sing songs and sometime record a video we call “Saturday’s with Daddy and Haley.” This week while she was riding I went for a nice long walk in the country. It was beautiful.
After Horseback Haley had a birthday party to attend. The party was at a roller-skating rink and I was honestly very concerned that she would have a hard time on the skates. Â (For new readers, Haley has Cerebral Palsy and has some difficulty with balance and walking.) I was also concerned because the last time I was on Roller-skates had to be in the late 80’s. Turns out I’m not half bad on skates and Haley did awesome. She did spend most of the time on the carpet because it was slower and softer but we got some rink time at the end and she just impresses me so much. Plus we had a blast falling together.
After the party we decided we wanted to go to the park. She actually rode her bike there. It’s a little over a mile and Haley rode herself most the way I only helped with the hills. When we got to the park I was pushing her on the swing but then asked her to try on her own. I’m not entirely sure how we got to it but somehow she began completely refusing to swing by herself and I was refusing to push her. My thought process was that I needed to push her to do it by herself so she could discover the fun of swinging independently. She says she knows how to swing independently but it isn’t more fun.
Thankfully Mommy showed up a few minutes later and took over with Haley. She got her calmed down and on the swings then she ever so subtly started teaching Haley to pump and swing. The whole while pushing her but in a sense holding her hand. I think I was just pushing. Thank God for my wife. I was stuck because I had committed to the stance and I was probably wrong after she had worked so hard during the day. I have since told her how proud I was of her for everything she did during the day. She mentioned the swing incident but I told her that it was okay and that she did an awesome job with everything that day.
So the lesson is sometimes it takes pushing and sometime you just need to hold their hand. How do you know when to push and when to hold hands?