Andare, Partire, Tornare ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Walk on Had my first day of volunteering for therapy riding today, and enjoyed it a whole bunch. I'm going to try and stick to a schedule of going on Sat. and Sun., which should keep me busy and active on the weekends, when I'm otherwise prone to slugging around the house and taking naps every half-hour. I wasn't sure how the kids would be - they range from autistic to CP to other disabilities. The first little boy I led was, as far as I knew, autistic - he sang to himself, and you had to fight for his attention. Once he started focusing on you, however, you could get him to follow simple instructions. By the end of the lesson, he was much faster to respond. The next little guy was such a doll - it was only his second lesson and he had a huge grin on his face the whole time. I can see how interaction with horses would draw a kid with problems out of their shell. Horses are so big, and it must be an incredible feeling to first realize that they are responding to your commands. (One person leads the horse, and there are two sidewalkers, but we try to let the kid give the commands to walk on, or trot, so that they feel the link between their command and the horse obeying it.) Blah - the weekend is already half-over! And Monday will be so busy - I'm just not wanting to even think about work yet. So I think I'll go plop back in front of the tv... 9:44 p.m. - 2002-03-23 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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