Last week, Caroline McGraw of A Wish Come True sent me a free copy of her e-book Your Creed Of Care: How To Dig For Treasure In People (Without Getting Buried Alive). She describes it as “a book about balancing the responsibilities of caregiving for an individual with disabilities with that of caring for yourself.” I offered to read it and let her know what I thought, and while I’m not easily impressed by…really any books these days (to which my book club can attest!), I read it in one sitting and loved it.
There’s nothing new or especially groundbreaking in the book, BUT… it’s filled with stories and insights about being a caregiver that I found valuable. We all – even those who “just” have toddlers, not special needs kids – need to be reminded of the things she talks about. It’s too easy to sacrifice our own well-being as moms when we have little (or big) ones to care for.
I highly recommend visiting her site for a copy – it’s completely free and a quick read.
ROAD TRIP! The Mayberry 9-10 Dixie Youth Baseball team won the state championship and is headed to the World Series – tournament starts tomorrow in central Florida. As you all know, I’m painfully indecisive and an obsessive planner, but I’ve gotten a wild hair and am going to take the kids! We have nothing else to do for the next couple of weeks before school starts, so I’m loading up the wagon and moving out in the morning.
It’ll either be a Delightful Once-In-a-Lifetime Trip to Remember, or it’ll be a Mistake of Epic Proportions. I will, after all, be outnumbered (no Mr. Andi). Expect photos and other random musings from the road next week. Of course, if we road trip it, then we’ll miss out on several days of the Olympics. Maybe I should rethink this plan…
KIDDING!
Remember that wedding I was to shoot last weekend? Well…it went off without a hitch (for me, anyway – the mother of the bride’s zipper messed up when she went to put on her dress so it was a little hairy for her for awhile there). If you said a little prayer for me on Saturday, thank you! A few of the images are uploaded on my Flickr.
After yesterday’s post, Maria Strong (@strongria on Twitter) let me know about two athletes with disabilities who competed at the Olympics before the Paralympics. Dean Barton-Smith, who is deaf, represented Australia in the decathlon in the Barcelona Games in 1992. Hungarian fencer Pál Szekeres won a bronze medal at the 1988 Seoul games, then was disabled in a bus accident, and went on to win three gold medals and three bronze in wheelchair fencing at the Paralympics – the only person to have medaled at both.
During our Twitter conversation, Maria also tipped me off to a blog post, “I Am Not ‘Special’” which was written by a paralympian who is often mistakenly referred to as a Special Olympian. Read it and tell me what you think about it. Maria also shared with me an article about the re-inclusion of athletes with intellectual disabilities in the Paralympic games (after a decade-plus of being excluded). The ban was initiated after ten members of the Spanish basketball team admitted to feigning a learning disability. Some people have no shame. It reminded me of this appalling website that I came across recently. What is wrong with people?!?
Please, please, pretty please vote for Nathan in the Most Beautiful Eyes Contest! Last year’s winner was a little girl named Kayla who also has Down syndrome – I think we need a T21 repeat for 2012! The contest is being run through Facebook and each person can vote once per day. Vote now!
And finally…as promised, I’ve uploaded video of Sarah Kate’s sub-minute 25 freestyle attempt from 2011. As my friend Dawn told me, I am, in fact, not The Mom of The Girl That Walks Funny, but The Mom Who Cheers Really Loudly. Enjoy. Feel free to mock me if you wish.
Have a great weekend!
Link up your own Seven Snippets below! Be sure to link to your post, not the main page of your blog.
Looking for a Seven Snippets template or graphic? Go here for some quick tools to create your own Seven Snippets post.
This post is also linked to Conversion Diary‘s 7 Quick Takes.
Andi, thank you for sharing the link to that article about the abuse of the Disney GAC program. Living in Orlando, everyone always comments how great it is that we can go to the theme parks whenever we want. However, with Matthew having CP, Epilepsy, and both visual and hearing impairments, we tended to avoid them like the plague. We were thrilled to learn about the GAC program back in March when we spent three days at the Disney resort. Matthew had an amazing time celebrating his birthday with Lightning McQueen and Mater and that would have been almost impossible to pull off without the GAC. Articles like that and the opinions of some of the commenters only goes to show how far we have still have to go to educate people about disabilities.
Thank you for sharing your family with us and for all your hard work!
Andi, thanks very much for featuring Your Creed of Care in this week’s “Seven Snippets”! I really appreciate it. 🙂
I love the video. Love love love love love. And as always, I’m so proud of her!!! She’s amazing!
I’ve been so remiss in posting and participating in seven snippets. I really do need to get back into it.