A guest article submitted to BabySignsDVD.com
I was really looking forward to a great weekend when we pulled out of the garage last Fiday on our way to pick up my brother and his kids for a few days of fresh air and camping in the nearby foothills. Far enough to get away from everything but close enough to have just a 40 minute drive.
We pulled up at Brad’s place just after 7 and he was all ready to go. His wife had a weekend seminar to attend and she had already left so he had packed everything himself and met us in the driveway as the kids bustled around for things they couldn’t do without. Teddy, the older boy is about 5 years old and quite independent but Melissa is hearing impaired and needs a lot of close watching, she’s not quite three now and follows Teddy around hanging on his T-shirt. They’re good kids and we’ve all gone on a few trips before, but never without their mom.
As we pulled onto the expressway, Brad started telling me about the latest news they had about Melissa’s hearing. They had just recently started working with a therapist that was introducing their whole family to sign language. The kids were doing better at it than their parents but he said it was something they all wanted to do and they worked on ways to make learning fun for all of them.
We pulled in at our favorite camping spot and found two other families there who were planning to spend the whole week right there doing some amateur prospecting. They seemed like nice folks and had left plenty of room there for us to set up so we pitched our old family tent and started unpacking the SUV. To keep an eye on Melissa, Brad had brought along their new Jeep baby carrier that let him carry her close while his hands were free to carry and help set up the tent. It sure looked weird until Melissa was in it, then it looked like it was just made for her.
Once we were all settled in the “prospectors” invited us all over to their campfire where they shared marshmallows and told us all about looking for gold and invited us to join them in the morning to show us their homemade sluice. It looked like we were all in for an adventurous weekend.
