I had another great session at Camp Merrywood.

I did archery and crafts.

I played Pin The Nose On Olaf with Elsa from Frozen.

I played sports and games.

Here’s me with a bunch of friends from Maple cabin.

Here is a video of me Krumping with my teacher. Krumping is a type of dance where you move your arms to rhythmic music.

Jon announced in September that he wanted to be a spider, which struck us as a relatively straighforward* project to do. This was a good thing, since this year’s construction was a real race against the clock. Because of work deadlines, costume building wasn’t able to start until the last minute, so it was really down to the wire whether it would get done in time for the little trick or treaters!

So we assumed our usual spheres of responsibility: I covered the small amount that was sewing-related, while Peter took on the vast majority of costume construction. On the day before Halloween trips to office supply shops, art stores and Queen St. fabric stores ensued.

Mailing tubes and fabric.

The same mailing tubes, painted and shaped, and cardboard. As ever, hot-melt glue is your costuming friend.

Spider carapace glued on and starting to get stuffed with bubble wrap and plastic bags—a LOT of them.

In the meantime Jon got fitted with a tunic with a cape-like flap, sewn from the spider fabric. The spider then got hung over our front porch (no time to construct a web, alas) and the flap got pinned to the spider body so that Jon was attached to the spider as its head and front legs.

Ta daah! One man-sized spider, ready to give out treats! We were going to make a hood with spider eyes for Jon to wear, but the night was so warm—and Jon hates hats sooo much—that we nixxed the idea.

Warm, but unfortunately rainy. The poor Riverdale Halloween Show players had to perform on a slickly wet stage in the pouring rain. But the show went on, and it was fabulously topical (the show creators couldn’t have asked for a better news tie-in thanks to the shenanigans of our mayor!

* It was also a bit of a relief, because earlier this year he announced that he wanted to be a Cyberman from Doctor Who, which is a bit more complicated.↩

I had another great session at Camp Merrywood. I went kayaking. I got wet in the water. During the ride I heard a Carly Rae Jepsen song. The song is Call Me Maybe.

At arts and crafts I made star jars which are jars lined with foil. When you shine a light in holes in the foil you get stars. I also made light sabers with Jackie. I like that.

I went on the overnight camping trip again. I really enjoyed it, especially the locks.

I saw a rainbow on day 7.

I went to the media program with Sam and made sock puppets. I performed a song for the sock puppet. As I was singing the song I recorded it. The song was about saying thank you and staying in touch.

Again this year, I told five funny jokes at the talent show on day 9.

We had the goodbye banquet on the last day.

It was another really good session this year at Camp Merrywood.

Jon

All through his school career Jon’s always been at (public) schools dedicated solely to kids with special needs, both physical and developmental. The two years where the school board decided to put him in a special needs class in a regular school, by contrast, was a low point. But at no point has a traditional marking system ever been applied to his work, so academically Jon could proceed at his own pace, based on his strengths and needs.

The new high school clearly has some hopes for Jon, as he was put in two MID (mild intellectual disability) classes, English and Math. And to our surprise, and yes, delight, after the midterms (that we didn’t know he had had) Jon came home with this:

Needless to say, colour us very happy and proud. Sometimes, occasionally, we’re getting something right.