Halloween-n-dreams

I wish I could plan something in our community for the special needs kids at Halloween. This holiday can be the toughest of them all for our children. There are numerous issues that can impact a special child's ability to enjoy this day:

• sensory issues (not able to wear a costume)
• non-verbal (can't say trick-or-treat or say it well)
• motor planning issues (can't get their hand into a bowl)
• fine motor skills (can't pick up the piece of candy)
• wheelchair bound (can't even go door to door to participate)
• vision impairment (self explanatory)

Just one of these things can seriously impact a child's enjoyment of this holiday let alone having more than one thing on that list (which is by no means exhaustive).

Liam has several of the issues on that list that prevent him from enjoying Halloween. We try to make the best of it, but there is not a neighborhood anywhere around where he can go from door to door in his wheelchair and participate in trick-or-treating (narrow paths, steps, uneven walkways, etc. not to mention Halloween decor that he will grab and take with him). And everything is so dark he can't see what's going on very well either.

If I were able to plan a Halloween for our kids I would love to have trick-or-treating take place in the mall. It's bright, open, wheelchair accessible, and could give many special needs kids a safe place to trick-or-treat. There could be numerous ways in which to give kids a chance to go 'door to door' inside a mall (have booths set up, tables, refrigerator boxes for houses, etc) and let them experience Halloween in an environment better suited to their needs. How cool would that be for them...

We took Liam to our church's fall festival this year instead of going with his older siblings trick-or-treating. He wasn't having much fun though and had been coughing, getting progressively worse as the evening progressed. By 7:15 he was conked out and running a fever. So much for showing him how much fun Halloween can be by getting gobs of candy and sharing it with his mom...

He's the Doctor.

Doctor Who?

A witch, the 11th Doctor, the Tardis, zombie, & a hobbit.

The Doctor is out.

Special needs kids truly have unique, different needs that can be misunderstood and overlooked. In the midst of the chaos of trick or treaters, costumes, and candy, are a large minority of kids who just want to participate but can't.

God's a nudger

God has a way of getting you where he wants you, no matter how long it takes. He is patient. Oh, so very patient. And he will place every opportunity in your path that is necessary to get you to see what needs to be seen. We just choose to look away. We choose to not see. For fear. For pain. For anger. For Rejection and so many other reasons.

I am not a leader. I do good in second command but leading is not my forte. So when I was asked a couple of years ago to lead a support group of moms with special needs kids I immediately said no.

My heart just wouldn't be in it. It's not me. It's not for me. It's not my thing. Nosireebob. I can't do that.

I didn't even think about leading a group again until this past summer. The thought managed to creep in to my mind. It seeped into my heart. It gnawed at me but I pushed it away. It's not my thing. I was questioning where on Earth this idea was coming from, so out of the blue like that, while I should have known the thought wasn't coming from Earth at all. It was being written in my heart from the Heavens.

I truly pondered the crazy idea of leading a support group.  I rationalized myself out of it though. I am not a leader. I don't want to be in charge. I don't pray well out loud. I stumble over my words. I talk too fast. I talk too much. I don't know enough scripture. My heart is still healing how can I lead a group. And on and on I went getting the idea to disappear.

And then in October I was talking to a friend when I heard the idea creep in again. This crazy idea was even stronger than before. And before I talked myself out of it, while I still felt a strong link to it, I shot off an email to one of our pastors asking if they even liked the idea. I asked if they could give us a place to meet. I asked if they would come along side and support such a ministry if one existed. I asked what they thought of it all the while not committing to leading it. Never thinking I should lead. Just wondering if it was something they would be interested in having at our church.

While I waited to hear back from the pastor about his thoughts, I received immediate confirmation that I was doing what God had desired from me for sometime. He was patiently waiting on me to be ready. And when I started to test out whether this was really something the Lord was leading me to do, he confirmed it. How so? Minutes after shooting off the email to the pastor, an email arrived in my inbox. It was from the woman who had asked me two years earlier to lead a support group. She sent me a message asking me again because she said there is such a need here for it and she thought I should do it.

 Imagine the coincidence: I don't talk to this woman often and have not talked to her about leading a support group in years. And she just so happens to send me an email asking me if I would lead one while I just so happened to be waiting on a reply to an email I had sent minutes earlier asking our church about starting a group.

I do not believe in those kinds of coincidences.

I believe my very patient God waited on me until I was ready to entertain the idea. And when I finally entertained the idea, testing to see if God was serious about using someone like me, he gently said yes. He has showed me that I didn't need to be ready, I just need to trust him.

God doesn't always call the qualified. He qualifies the called. That's what I'm banking on. 'Cause I'm just a girl from the Ozarks who's never been a leader.

Stem cell gel

Scientists here in the US have developed a gel that when used on brain injuries helps stem cells to grow and heal the injury.

In South Carolina, they studied rats with brain injuries and found that when the gel was used the rats showed significant recovery.

They expect it to be ready for human testing in three years.

How cool is that?!

Murphy's Law says it all

On my way to Ireland last year, the woman at the airline counter loved our families names. We got to talking about Irish names and meanings as she had named her children with Gaelic names as well. When I mentioned that my daughter had the name Aidan we got into a discussion about how she chose not to name her daughter Aidan when she found out what it meant even though she loved the name. She asked me if my Aidan had grown into her name and by God, she has. She is as fiery as her name means.

Liam's middle name is Murphy. He wasn't named after Murphy's law. But it sure does seem that he's grown into that at times.

This past week I took Liam with me to church to hear Steve Brown speak. I normally don't do these things if there is no one to watch Liam because I fear him vomiting in the service. And since he's not a little boy any more it's messy, embarrassing, and gross to do that in front of people. So, I normally would leave Liam at home. But Shawn was out of town and I wanted to go.

Liam was enjoying the video clips, laughing and having a great time. He was really happy and I was thinking we had escaped any embarrassing moments.

Three quarters of the way through the service, when Steve Brown started taking questions from the audience so it was extremely quiet, Liam gagged and started to throw up. I jumped up, shoved a cloth under his chin, and raced out the door. On the long walk to the bathroom he threw up all over himself. I get in the bathroom and start to clean him up and he throws up again. I literally take Liam and his seat out of the stroller, throw it up on the counter, and position Liam so he can vomit into the sink with the water running.

It was quite a site. Thank God it was not a normal service and there weren't people coming and going out of the bathroom because it was bizarre looking. I am sure it looked like I was torturing him keeping him strapped in a seat, sideways on a counter, holding his head up so he could throw up. I felt so bad for Liam.

When he finished vomiting I strapped him to the changing table so I could clean up his stroller and the sink because it was a mess. This was one time I was thankful he is on a liquid diet because I had to unclog the sink.

I get to Liam and pull off his smelly clothes. I also change his diaper and as I am leaning down to grab a diaper out of the bag, he pees all over the place. The only clean clothes he had on were his socks and they are now covered in pee. The plastic changing table has a large puddle of pee under his back. I am completely out of wipes at this point so I grab wet paper towels and clean him up, dress him and put him back in the stroller... where he starts crying.

I thoroughly clean the sink, the counter, the changing table, and the floor of the bathroom. All while Liam is crying in the stroller.

I ask Aidan if the service is done because I just want to escape to the car with no one seeing me. She said they were finished and everybody was hanging out in the lobby. Lovely.

Liam is still crying.

I head down the elevator, with my stroller full of towels and clothes covered in vomit and pee, and try to encounter as few people as possible getting out of the church.

I grab all my kids and head to the truck.

Liam is still crying.

As I open his door to put him in the truck he vomits again all over his freshly changed clothes.

I strip him down and pop him into his seat sans clothes and head home.

Seriously.