1. Our church has a delightful after school program on Wednesdays, appropriately titled, "Wonderful Wednesdays."It's for kids age 3 to 5th grade, and Simon has loved it for as long as he's attended. David will technically be eligible, here in about a month or so, but Matt (he's in charge of this ministry) is advising against it. I suppose I agree; this is not a public school or anything and they just don't have the staffing to give him the attention he needs - daycare is helping him with sitting in a chair and coloring or whatever, and I know that no 3 y.o., disabled or not, is that great at any of that "paying attention" stuff. At the same time, my hackles automatically went up (not at Matt, at the universe or something) - he has the right to participate just like any other kid. I suppose this'll be an ongoing or recurring battle, trying to balance David's rights with what a "reasonable accommodation" is, in any given circumstance. I guess I could volunteer in the preschool class and be available as a 1:1 for David; note to self talk to Matt about this.
2. Last weekend we visited some of Matt's friends from college; it's a married couple and she's the one who introduced Matt and me. Simon had his first chance to roller skate on Saturday, then a family pizza party and Wii stuff that evening. We went to church with them the next day; they attend a tiny UMC (about the size of the one I grew up in) about 5 seconds away from their house. We attended Sunday school with the wife; husband is an accountant and is working 7 days/week during tax season. The young adult class is doing an Adam Hamilton study about the last words of Jesus, from the cross. Adam (we don't know him personally but have done several of his other series ourselves, and Matt has a number of his books) made an assertion about the nature of "Oh God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" that helped everyone feel a little better about it. Matt didn't say anything; I know he wanted other people to lead the discussion not him, but I know him well enough to say that if he strongly agreed with the assertion, he would've said something affirming it. I asked him about it later in the car; when he began with, "Well ..." I interrupted him to say, "You're not getting ready to contradict my boyfriend Adam Hamilton, are you?" He responded, "Heck, I may be getting ready to contradict
MY boyfriend Adam Hamilton." Hee hee hee. And he did contradict him but it'd take too long to explain here. There's another part of the classroom discussion I'd like to follow up on, but it's not coming together yet.
 |
(These are not great shots but this is David helping
with laundry, his favorite chore) |
3. Have I mentioned lately how great David is doing? He continues to learn by imitation on the cutest things, the most recent being spitting out toothpaste while brushing. He had kind of done this before, but it was only leaning his head over the sink. Now he is also making a little spitting sound, the world's most adorable little "pppfffftt." He's not actually spitting; we're still using the training toothpaste that it's okay to swallow and it really doesn't foam up or anything. He is still using "okay" and says Dad or Daddy on a pretty regular basis. He says "Mahm" or "Mahma" too, but unfortunately only when he's unhappy, so it's more like "Maaaaaaaaahm!" screeched at top volume. He has mastered the signs more, please, and help, and the next on my list is "thank you." He's still so proud of himself whenever he accomplishes anything, like putting his shoes in the shoe basket after taking them off, and still loves being made a big deal over. He's getting good at throwing stuff in the trash (he's such a big fan we have to really supervise any throwing-away) and his dirty clothes into the laundry basket at bath time. He also likes to throw away his (wet) diapers - we usually throw the wet ones in the trash and save the Diaper Genie for the dirty ones, but last week when I opened the closet door and the trash can lid for him to throw away a wet diaper, he: closed the trash can lid, closed the closet door, walked over to the Diaper Genie, and threw it in there. Writing this I'm really feeling mom-ish - who else in the world would be proud of advancing to spitting and throwing away diapers? :) I LOVE THIS LITTLE GUY.
4. A long time ago, maybe more than a year ago, I did an interview at Mission Children's Specialists for an upcoming fundraiser for the Hospital Foundation. The fundraising telethon was sponsored by 99.9 Kiss Country, and they had a little studio set up at the doctors' offices. The guy interviewing me didn't work for the radio station, there was some complicated thing about a 3rd-party/consulting sort of thing that were handling the fundraiser for the Foundation? I just told our story about the services David received at Mission Hospital, with instructions to mention the hospital's name as often as possible. They also took several photos, of course since I'd thought about putting on makeup that morning and said to myself, hey it's the radio it doesn't matter what I look like. I think they were pleased with at least the photos they got of Mr. David.
So anyway, I totally forgot about this pretty soon afterward. I was supposed to be present at Asheville Mall for the day of the telethon, but I was having a really bad day that day and we didn't make it and yeah, I forgot. Then our neighbor called today (Monday) and said the telethon was again this past weekend, and she and her daughters heard my interview on the radio! She said the interview with me was spliced into a country song, with my voice for a minute and then some relevant portion of the song. I immediately went to the radio station's webpage and found a list of several other parents' stories but mine's not up there (yet, I hope - you will certainly be the first to know if it gets posted). She said I did a great job and the whole song thing was well-done; the ones that I listened to on the station's website sounded pretty good, if you like that kind of thing.
2. Last weekend we visited some of Matt's friends from college; it's a married couple and she's the one who introduced Matt and me. Simon had his first chance to roller skate on Saturday, then a family pizza party and Wii stuff that evening. We went to church with them the next day; they attend a tiny UMC (about the size of the one I grew up in) about 5 seconds away from their house. We attended Sunday school with the wife; husband is an accountant and is working 7 days/week during tax season. The young adult class is doing an Adam Hamilton study about the last words of Jesus, from the cross. Adam (we don't know him personally but have done several of his other series ourselves, and Matt has a number of his books) made an assertion about the nature of "Oh God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" that helped everyone feel a little better about it. Matt didn't say anything; I know he wanted other people to lead the discussion not him, but I know him well enough to say that if he strongly agreed with the assertion, he would've said something affirming it. I asked him about it later in the car; when he began with, "Well ..." I interrupted him to say, "You're not getting ready to contradict my boyfriend Adam Hamilton, are you?" He responded, "Heck, I may be getting ready to contradict MY boyfriend Adam Hamilton." Hee hee hee. And he did contradict him but it'd take too long to explain here. There's another part of the classroom discussion I'd like to follow up on, but it's not coming together yet.
4. A long time ago, maybe more than a year ago, I did an interview at Mission Children's Specialists for an upcoming fundraiser for the Hospital Foundation. The fundraising telethon was sponsored by 99.9 Kiss Country, and they had a little studio set up at the doctors' offices. The guy interviewing me didn't work for the radio station, there was some complicated thing about a 3rd-party/consulting sort of thing that were handling the fundraiser for the Foundation? I just told our story about the services David received at Mission Hospital, with instructions to mention the hospital's name as often as possible. They also took several photos, of course since I'd thought about putting on makeup that morning and said to myself, hey it's the radio it doesn't matter what I look like. I think they were pleased with at least the photos they got of Mr. David.
No comments:
Post a Comment