the little guy started using that foot of his again! and is starting to regain strength in his ankle. he is toddling around the house...although he still goes back and forth between his bear crawl and walking, but it is getting better every day, so we are due to have a full time walker again soon, hopefully.
a few weeks ago i posted about the song "i'll walk with you" that we sang with the kids in primary. the following sunday i was asked to introduce camden to our primary, and teach them a little about down syndrome...part of me was excited for the opportunity, because i love my son and i want for everyone to see him and down syndrome the way that i do, and part of me was a little hesitant, because i didn't want to single camden out and make the kids think he was different than they were. so i decided to start out by telling the kids all of the things i knew camden liked that they would like too...rough housing, watching movies, reading books with me, playing, the park, swimming, singing songs, listening to music, dancing....and then i went into how he is a little different...like he took a little longer to learn to walk then they did, and how he uses sign language because it is a little difficult to understand him as he is learning to talk ( and i had camden teach the kids a couple of signs) ...and how he has special braces to help build the muscles in his ankles for walking, and how he might have a harder time learning things in school than they do. and at the end of it all i said that camden might be a little different, and maybe they know other kids who are maybe a little different and they are afraid they won't have anything in common with them....but to remember that camden also likes a lot of the same things that they do and that really, everyone has a lot in common. and then i asked the primary if they like to have friends...and of course, every single one raised their hand...and then i raised camden's hand...and said camden likes to have friends too and asked them if they could be his friend....or be the friend of someone else who maybe doesn't have very many friends. then they had the primary sing the song "i'll walk with you" for camden and he clapped and smiled at them and in the end i was so thankful for the opportunity to share my little guy with this generation of kids who will be so influential in his life. i am so thankful for their sweet spirits and for their willingness to love camden, just as he is...even though i really don't see how you couldn't love this kid! they all stayed to play with camden after primary and of course camden loved the attention.
Oh my word I would have bawled. It sounds like you did a great job. Glad he's getting back to walking again!
ReplyDeleteI think you did great! Kids can be so much more understanding when things are explained, than when they are hurried away. Camden will have friends in his Primary.
ReplyDeleteAw, this made me tear up...I think you did a beautiful job Tonya...I like how you started by saying all the things Camden likes and explained how he is just like them.
ReplyDeleteGlad to hear he is up and walking again :)