She is ALL THAT!

Written by me after hearing a story today from my 10 yr old niece that really disturbed me.

To the “cool girls” in 5^th grade that called their classmate “ugly” because she has difficulty walking and speaking:  “Girls, I have news for you, that girl is ALL THAT, and a bag of chips!”

When you hear her speak differently you stare and laugh, but she knows deep inside that you laugh because you are too ignorant to understand. Although you see her walking with difficulty today, you have no idea that one day she will be standing in front of the White House in Washington D.C. and she will realize that the sky is the limit for her.

Her brain might have been injured once, but is now developing at a tremendous rate to make up for early struggles, while she is becoming better and smarter, you are just “normal”. She struggles every day, you think, to get from place to place, but what she is really doing is coming up with innovative ways to do things, while your body is just “normal”.

While you will be struggling to “fit in” one day and be like everyone else, she will already know that the beauty is in being different. She will go about life with an open mind accepting and embracing diversity, while you try to be "just like" someone else. 

So to the “cool girls” in school, I challenge you today to make a change, to become smarter, to embrace diversity, to see the beauty in being different. Stop just being “normal” because being "just normal" is so NOT cool!

NOTE:
One might argue that kids are "just kids" that they just need to be educated so that they can be more accepting. The problem is that not many care. Not many teachers, not many parents, not many school staff. My sister went to the school today to bring up the issue and offer to talk or work with teachers on a plan to educate kids on embracing differences in everyone, including kids with special needs. Unfortunately, she did not receive the feedback she expected and the school is not willing to cooperate.

Little stages, Big celebrations... and milestone update 22 months old

I remember the NICU days with Sophie and Grace. For Grace, every single day that she stayed alive was worthy of a happy dance. I should have danced more because each day with her turned out to be a rare gem, one that cannot ever be found again. Each and everyone of her first four days of life, the doctor would approach us with news, they would say that she was alive because the first few days were her "honey moon stage". I didn't believe them. The doctors always said that Grace had 0% chance of living and guess what, they were wrong. Day one, day two, day three, day four... came and went. I had already stopped believing that she would not stay with us forever, until day five proved me wrong. We put up a picture in Grace's and in Sophie's isolette of Dad, Greggy, and I with Santa Claus. We used to take this same picture every year at the mall since Greggy was born. We told the girls that this year, in December 2011, all 5 of us would take this very same picture with Santa, at the mall.  Day five of Grace's life turned out to be devastating when she got her wings and flew away to heaven. Although it was a completely devastating, and shocking day, we had another little one who still lived at the hospital, inside an isolette and continued losing weight. Sophie was 2lbs when she was born, however, she began to lose weight and dropped well under 2lbs during her first week of life.

Doctors said that Sophie was following the typical course of a premmie. I stopped believing that I was taking any baby home. I really thought that with Sophie losing so  much weight, she would probably go away too. But she held on and began gaining weight again. each gram that she gained was a huge celebration. Every day we checked to see how much she gained, if she had pooped, if she had digested her food. Seem like little, insignifact things in life, but for us, they signified whether our child would stay alive. Of course, the biggest celebration of all was the day when Sophie came home from the NICU. After 70 days, on Thanksgiving, Sophie went home on a heart monitor as she continued to have Bradycardia Episodes when her heartrate would drop and if left unatttended meant Sophie would go into cardiac arrest and die. So it was a bitter and sweet moment. We were supposed to take two babies home, not one. And this baby was very fragile, I tried not think how she was so fragile. She was barely 5lbs.

Then came the day when Sophie showed us her first smile... A wonderful moment that we celebrated!
The milestones stopped coming at that point. The day when she held her head steady, the day when she rolled over, the day when she first crawled... never came. At that point we realized that there was something wrong.

After we learned that the milestones would come slow or might never come at all, we celebrate even more!

Our hearts were filled with joy and our faces were full of smiles when, at 21 months old, Sophie started rolling over. She also had kept perfect control of her head for months now. Seeing her roll over is REFRESHING, HEART WARMING, JOYOUS!

And at 22 months old, she also swallowed food, again something anyone could take for granted but not seeing the food come right out of as child's mouth right after you fed her can be a GREAT moment, I tell you. I smiled, I laughed my heart out! Sophie swallowed small pieces of ground beef. Probably about 1/4 of teaspoon, but who cares! She also swallowed about 1/4 cup of Broccoli and Cheese soup from Panera Bread. I even took a video of it. Now we are frequent customers at Panera. I know that there is a big chance that Sophie will swallow more foods in the future.

And now for the milestones... at 22 months old... Each and every one of these are worthy of a celebration!

Sophie swallows broccoli and cheeese soup from Panera
Sophie holds has perfect head control
Sophie imitates sounds and talks some words. She is bilingual, understands and speaks English and Spanish.
Sophie know the letters A, B, C, D
Sophie sings! She loves to sing (babbles)
Sophie sits with support in a shopping cart while buckled.
Sophie can roll over back and forth and can hold her upped body using her arms for about 10 seconds.
Sophie has better use of her hands. She transfers toys from one hand to the other and holds object at midline.
Sophie is beautiful, happy, and loves her family!