The first Friday in June has been a favorite of our family’s since…
Well…
since we were first invited to Hasbro Children’s Hospital’s Dream Night at the (Roger Williams) Zoo. Shortly after Trevy’s diagnosis. Four years have gone by too fast!
You can read the history of Dream Night here.
For our family, it’s just such a beautiful treat. An escape from the daily grind that is loving and caring for a child with catastrophic epilepsy. While some stretches are less crisis filled than others…somehow it’s no less exhausting.
Or maybe I’m just a big baby? 
Either way being invited to celebrate at the zoo with other families, exhausted (or big babies?) like us, is…
Well…
heart warming.
All three kids begged for face painting this year. Evidently, Tobes has lived the past three hundred and sixty some days regretting that he was too cool for the paint last year.
This year he decided the choices were manly enough for him. Batman. Spiderman. Things like that.
Trevy did amazingly well at sitting still without grabbing at the paint brush or paints! Much.
They also have super neat-o exploration stations set up throughout the park.
One of the exhibits was…no joke…a ginormous pile of elephant poo.
Shellacked. To make it play-with-able.
It only occurred to us when it was too late that maaaaaybe we shouldn’t have had quite so much fun playing with the poo. See, Trevy has this new (new here really means we’ve been battling over this for months) habit which involves…umm…playing or rather painting with his poo.
I did tell him if we shellacked his poo maybe I would think about letting him play with it…but otherwise…let’s leave it in the pants, bud. Or better yet…plop it in the potty!
He said,
Ohhhh-kaaaaay
So I think maybe we’re getting somewhere.
We also got to pet the cutest little Wallaby you ever did see.
The kids are all still wearing their little self decorated safari hats.
A couple highlights for me were definitely the monkey. She was everywhere! And was always asking Trevy to dance.
My other favorite was during dinner.
We always wander off to the quieter tables away from all the action. Last year they added some free play games. This year they had even more fun – play-doh, hula hoops, puzzles. Just lots of fun. Which translated into the kiddos connecting with other kids.
I cannot lie. Watching Toby and Bristel making friends with other special needs siblings made me a little sappy in the heart. A little wet in the eyes.
As did seeing Trevy have so much fun!
…danielle
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