Failing... for Charity?

On Saturday, Kayla, Hudson, Finnley and I participated in the "Steps For Kindness with Autism Speaks" virtual Facebook event. Or at least we thought we did.

About a year ago, I became interested in the various Autism awareness events around the country. Kayla and I will readily admit that we know next to nothing about what Autism Speaks does for families impacted by the Spectrum, and we certainly don't have any first-hand knowledge about how incredible their events seem to be. Rochester has an annual Autism Speaks walk, but we missed the boat on participating this past year. So when we saw the Facebook post for this event, we were immediately interested!

The goal of the "Steps for Kindness with Autism Speaks" event was simple; log at least 5,400 steps from 1pm-2pm on Saturday, April 25th, individually or as a team. The 5,400 steps represent acceptance for the 1 in 54 children in the United States that have Autism. A Facebook page was created for participants to share their photos and proof that they completed the challenge (ours are below).

At 3:15am Saturday morning, Finnley woke us all up screaming. Kayla and I rushed in to find him burning up and shaking like crazy. He had a fever of 103 - 104, according to our expensive-yet-apparently-not-always-reliable forehead thermometer. He had been teething for the past several days, but we thought it best to talk to the on-call pediatrician to be safe. At their recommendation, we gave Finnley a dose of Motrin, and I took him to the Emergency Room to be seen. When we got there, his fever had dropped to 100.4 (THANKFULLY). After a couple hours of his fever staying down, and nothing else found to be wrong, we were sent home.

Finnley and I got home at 6:30am, and struggled to find sleep the remainder of the morning. Kayla had stayed home with Hudson and hadn't gotten much more sleep than I did. Hudson, meanwhile, woke up early and was running around the house like a crazy dinosaur that was hopped up on caffeine (NOTE: he insists that he doesn't drink our coffee, and doesn't nap, so we have NO idea where this energy comes from sometimes). He was running full-steam ahead, and needed a way to get some energy out. After struggling through breakfast and lunch, Kayla and I decided to give this event a go.

Now we know what you're thinking - "WHY ON EARTH WOULD YOU TAKE FINNLEY OUT TO WALK 5400 STEPS AFTER HAVING BEEN IN THE ER HOURS EARLIER?!" The weather all week had been terribly cold and wet, and Hudson had not had much time to run outside. The temperature on Saturday soared into the low 60s, and the sun made a rare appearance this Spring. Finnley LOVES his walks around the neighborhood with us. We closely monitored his temperature and condition all morning, and Finnley seemed fine. After having been isolated in our homes for 58-going-on-5,000 days, we decided that some fresh air would do us all some good.

Knowing that 5,400 steps was a lot to get in during an hour - especially when you're pushing a stroller - we decided to head to the high school track a few blocks from our house. The track surface is new and offers some shock absorption, making it an ideal place to try to walk and run. Hudson always pretends to be the Mello Yello race car (thanks to a Kyle Petty toy car that he has from when I was a kid) when we walk around the village, and tries to "race" Finnley in the stroller. Those races are short-lived, though, when we have to stop at several intersections, and every car that drives by scares Hudson. So we told him that this was a special race track where there were no cars in sight. He was STOKED.

We got to the track and Hudson was instantly amazed. Finnley was jamming out to some music playing through our Bluetooth speaker. After 20 attempts to get a photo of all of us together (which NEVER results in everyone looking at the camera at the same time), we started our event. Hudson took off running, and kept on running as long and hard as he could. Finnley loves watching us run, and we were all cracking up. Hudson kept pointing out imaginary dinosaurs and creatures that he saw during our laps around the track, stopping only long enough for a quick sip of water before running off again.

Watching Hudson run inspires Kayla and I immensely. It wasn't that long ago that we had gotten a referral for him to receive Physical Therapy services to help with his walking and jumping. Running was a rare thing for him to do, and we were always fearful of the times that he would tumble and fall. But here he was, running laps around the track, not knowing that he was doing so to raise awareness for people just like him. It was truly, truly amazing!

When we got home, I was proud to see that we had logged more steps as a family than what the event called for. I quickly posted our photos to the event Facebook page, and waited anxiously to see it shared with the other participants. I saw proud families posting their photos, but ours never made it to the page for some reason. And then it hit me... WE NEVER FULLY REGISTERED FOR THE EVENT.

The Facebook page had a link to an application that we needed to download and use to track and report our steps for the event. In the chaos of the day, we completely missed this and completely failed at having our steps count towards the event's goal. But none of that mattered to us in the end. Finnley was healthy, Hudson was RUNNING, and we had a beautiful afternoon outside together.