A Stroll in the Park

My neighbor and I went for a walk today.   We'd been planning the walk for over a week and were about to get going when she called with a complication.   Did I know if Kona Ica was making a scheduled stop in the neighborhood or was the truck driving around one you could wave down?  Her son had gotten his money and was ready to chase after the truck.  

There wasn't anything scheduled apparently so my daughter and I joined our neighbors in the chase.  Ten minutes later my daughter was happily spooning rainbow-colored ice into her mouth and my neighbor and I were about to head off into the park.  She said to my daughter, "you're welcome to come along with us if you want to."

This was not something I had offered to my daughter earlier, thinking it would be a walk in the newly re-opened park for us adults to talk about adult things, walking at an adult pace.   It wasn't a bad change with my daughter along, it was just a different experience.

For my daughter, she really liked going with us.  She hadn't been in the park in some time and the experience with her vision now was different.   She noticed when we went under large coverings of trees, saying, "it got darker."

She paid attention to all the changes in the path, picking up rocks and throwing them safely, after moving to a location and aiming in a direction that she knew for certain there were no people.   This sounds obvious, but it's a coordination of multiple pieces of information before you're ready to safely throw:  where are the people I'm with?  What direction am I aiming in directionally?  Where is the dog?  Are people coming up the path in the opposite direction?  Am I going to have the throw ricocheted back at me?  She really wanted to throw rocks.   And I mean really.  I had no idea how much she wanted to throw rocks.

What was most interesting to me was how my daughter wanted to be far ahead or behind us.  She had her cane with her for part of the walk but put it up, asking me to hold it.   The path was much lighter than the greenery and other material surrounding it.   My daughter was able to stay on the path with relative ease.   She would get close to the edge a good bit, but she'd course correct.

I told my neighbor I was paying attention because it was possible she was seeing her way safely along the path.   She could see the light change, but could she see the path?  I was fairly certain she could at least see some of it until right at the end.   There was a tight curve in the path and Lisa and I had moved on ahead.  I stopped to make sure she moved around the steep edging safely when I saw her turn so she was walking straight towards our voices.   Could it be she had been following our voices all along and not the path?  Some of the time she had elected to be in front of us and could still move along the path.   I just don't know.   I need more data.

One thing my daughter did without fail was to move aside for bikers and runners.   She would call out to us in case we were talking and not paying attention.   She would step to the side and stand still.   I would ask the dog to lie down until the traffic had passed.  She always heard people coming first.  

We ended our stroll—it wasn't nearly fast enough to be a walk—at about six o'clock, saying we should get together next week and walk again.  ]]

The Big Boy Tiny Girl Audio Book Zoning:  My son and daughter went outside after breakfast and hung out under the deck, sitting on chairs and doing not very much anything at all, for hours.   They are so entranced with their current audiobook.   There is only one more in the series and then they're going to be down about it being over.   It's after eight o'clock at night and I think they're still outside listening still.