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Field of Dreams

Posted by on 5:53 am

Saturday was a day I’d been anticipating for a long time – my family’s first time at the Buddy Walk for the Miami Valley Down Syndrome Association.  We came out to walk and support our friends Paul, Jessica, Jay, and Baby Joy. Joy was born this past April with Down Syndrome, and when I found out Paul and Jess were going to form a Buddy Walk team, I knew immediately I should get involved!  With your help, I raised $599 for the people living in my area with Down Syndrome!  And our team, Team Peace, Love, & Joy raised over $3,000! Woooohoooo! We were also the #7 fundraising team for the whole walk! Not bad for a first-year effort, right!?

The Buddy Walk was downtown at our beautiful minor-league baseball stadium, the Dayton Dragons Fifth Third Field. It was a rainy morning so we couldn’t get out on the field, but fortunately it cleared up right before we were set to walk!  So we walked around the concourse and had a great time and a gorgeous day.  We LOVED hanging out with our team!  Here’s Bobby, Jonah and I with Joy Marie, the star of the show!

And here’s me with Joy and her awesome & beautiful mom, Jess:

Here are some more fun pics of our day at the Buddy Walk:

I cannot tell you how proud I was to be a part of Team Peace, Love, & Joy to support this sweet family and all the wonderful families of the Miami Valley Down Syndrome Association! I also wanted to give big props to my friend Jen, whose team in honor of her 5-year-old daughter Emmaline and her niece Kayla, was the #4 top fundraising team! I’ve known Jen and her hubby since high school and Emmaline and Sophie are the same age and used to go to the same speech therapist. I’ve loved watching Emmy grow and learn and just be generally awesome. She has a really awesome mom, dad, big brother and sister, too!

My favorite part about the Buddy Walk was just seeing all the happy, excited families there.  Everyone was so joyful and proud and the mood was just celebratory and fun!  No one was there crying about their lot in life parenting a child with a disability.  Everyone was thrilled to be celebrating their families, raising awareness, and raising money to help get their kiddos the funds they need to reach their full potential.  It was, as I like to say, TOTES awesome.  Totes!  I was super-proud to have my family involved and I can’t wait til next year!

Thanks so much to everyone who supported my fundraising efforts, from my $5 Friends to my $100 Friends, you all made this possible, and I really cannot thank you enough for helping to make a difference in the lives of some pretty rockin’ people right here in my hometown.

THANK YOU!!!

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The Big Ideal

Posted by on 5:44 am

Sunday morning I was doing my coffee-and-newspaper ritual thing (hooray for Saturday night church! Best thing since sliced bread.) and I flipped open the Target ad.  I do loves me some Target so I always check out what’s on sale so I can see if I have an excuse to visit that big red circle this week. As I flipped through the brightly colored pages, my eyes landed on this:

And I promptly instagrammed, facebooked, and tweeted it because, oh my gosh! Target put a sweet little gorgeous boy with Down Syndrome in its ad.  And it filled me with absolute joy.

Now, Target has done this before.  And I am certainly not the first person to write about them doing so.  But I’d never flipped open my Sunday ad and discovered on my own that they had used a beautiful special-needs child as a model. It took my breath away.

Why?  Why did it affect me so profoundly? I had to think about it as I wiped away tears – why did this picture make me so emotional? And then, after awhile, I was able to put it into words. This photo touched me so deeply because this child is a model. And you know what a model is? According to Dictionary.com, it’s “a standard or example for imitation or comparison“.  It’s someone’s definition of perfection, of the ideal.  It is not “normal” but “extraordinary”.  A model represents the best, most beautiful, most picturesque of its kind.  Something we should imitate, maybe strive to replicate.

Target is saying, by using this child as a model, “This child is ideal.”

In a world that most often shuns or ignores those with disabilities, this is huge. 

 I feel I can say with full confidence that this child’s parents already know he is ideal. He is everything they ever hoped for or dreamed of in a child, special needs and all.  His parents most likely do not want him to be anything other than who he is.  To them, he is perfect.

When we were figuring out Sophie’s developmental delays, there were times I felt that people who were evaluating her wanted her to be someone different than who she was.  And I never wanted that.  No matter what we did or didn’t find out about her delays, I was okay with Sophie being Sophie.  No matter what “accessory package” came with her.  She was my girl, she was perfect, she was fearfully and wonderfully made.

The beautiful boy in the Target ad is ideal. He is perfect.  He is fearfully and wonderfully made.  You and I shouldn’t feel sorry for him or for his parents, because their family is what it was meant to be.

A model family.  Because they were made for each other. Fearfully and wonderfully made.

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Help me get it right.

Posted by on 7:05 am

Before you read this post, go read this one by my new friend Jeannett.  It’s about her daughter Jill,  and it’s the inspiration for what I’m about to say.

Ok, are you back?  Did you need to go get a tissue? (Or don’t you have a soul!?)

One thing that my whole experience with Sophie’s developmental delays has brought to my life is a sensitivity for people with disabilities, and their families. Especially their moms.  Seeing your kid looked at as “different” is hard.  Sophie only got weird looks because of sometimes-crazy behavior, as she is phyiscally “normal”.  And that was bad enough.  To watch the gawking or ignoring that kids and adults with obvious physical disabilities endure is very unsettling.  To be a parent or loved one having to watch your kid get gawked at?  I truly cannot imagine.

Because Sophie used to see kids with all kinds of disabilities at her therapy clinics or at her school, she treats a kid in a wheelchair or walker, or a child with Down Syndrome the same as all her other friends.  It’s awesome to watch. There was a girl at school and a boy at OT that she especially like to keep tabs on. I can only hope she doesn’t lose that as she continues on to “regular” kindergarten.  I know, as an adult, that I KNOW BETTER, and I know that I need to teach my children early to KNOW BETTER and to DO BETTER.  Sophie’s got it, but I need to teach my boys.  To be the one that treats everyone with kindness and respect.  To look someone in the eye. To smile.  To hold a door, or a conversation, whether that person is in a wheelchair, on a walker, has a mental disability, or whatever.

I love my kids. I love them just the way they are.  They are mine.  And you know what? If Sophie’s delays hadn’t been temporary, she would still be my amazing, wonderful, rock-star daughter.  I never wanted her to be anything different than what God made her to be.  And I wouldn’t want to be treated as if either a) she didn’t exist or b) she should be avoided like the plague or c) I should be pitied because of my poor, disabled child.

Would you ?

Tell me, if you have a disability, or your child or loved one does, or you’ve worked with people with disabilities, what do you want us “typicals” out there to know and do?  Help us get it right.  Let’s learn together how to love one another better.

 

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