June | 2013 | Lessons from my daughter

Today, I wanted to tell you about how bad my back is aching…. and why it is aching!!!

I blame it on Emily
I felt like whining a bit…

Than I took Emily to baseball where I stood up, walked and cheered for over an hour which helped my back…

Emily did great for the first game of the season… I agreed to ice cream after baseball… 🙂

On the way home, Emily changed the CD and decided we were listening to Breaking Free from High School Musical!

If you haven’t watched High School Musical…. Good for you!!!

If you have watched it, it’s the song at the end of the first movie where Gabriella and Troy finally sing in front of their friends!!!

And for anyone of you who haven’t seen the High School musical movies because your kids are too young….. You might think that the guy in the “Lucky One” movie is hot…. Well… That’s just wrong! He was Troy in High School Musical… that means my daughter thinks he is cute/kinda hot which makes it sooo wrong on so many levels that my friends think he is hot!!!

This part has nothing to do with my post but I needed to get it out!

When Emily and I sing our heads off in the car (karaoke style) I am Troy… I can’t sing the girl’s part!…. That’s Emily’s part! I am always the guy.

Today, the words were uplifting, they made me smile, took my desire to whine away and made the people in the cars around us stare at us!!!

Breaking Free

We’re soarin’, flyin’
There’s not a star in heaven that we can’t reach (yup, not one star we can’t reach…)
If we’re trying
So we’re breaking free
You know the world can see us
In a way that’s different than who we are (well, the world does see us in a way that’s different than who we are doesn’t it?)
Creating space between us
‘Til we’re separate heartsBut your faith it gives me strength (yes, Emily’s faith in me and my faith in her…)
Strength to believe
We’re breakin’ free (oh yes…. we don’t care, we are breaking free, singing our heads off in the car and kinda dancing too!!!)

Ohhhh runnin’ climbin’

To get to that place
To be all that we can be (shouldn’t we all aim for this?)
Now’s the time
So we’re breaking free
We’re breaking free

More than hope
More than faith
This is true
This is fate
And together
We see it comin’
More than you
More than me
Not a want, but a need
Both of us breakin’ free (we can understand whatever we want here… but we do want/need to be true to who we are…)
Soarin’ Flyin’

You know the world can see us

In a way that’s different than who we are

(Well the people in the cars around us probably had a really strong point of view of who we are… )

I made a list months ago of things that instantly make me smile…

I have a list for my husband, when he drives me nuts, I go through my list in my head and I slowly get over it.

When I feel like whining… I look at Emily and she takes me to my list without even knowing that it is what she is doing.

🙂

One of the item on my Emily list is singing our heads off in the car!

She knows when I need a little lift, a little push towards positivity…. I don’t know how she knows but it never fails. Tonight, instead of whining about my back, I got ice cream after singing my head off in the car!!!

Thank you Emily! My back still hurts but my spirit is high!!!

I don’t care what people in the other cars are thinking… I am guessing we make them smile!

What makes you instantly happy? Do you have happy lists?

Today I got thinking about choices…

I remembered someone telling me years ago that we never had a choice with Emily. She was born with this syndrome and we didn’t know so we had no choice…

I strongly disagreed!

I believe we always have a choice, actually multiple choices…

It’s just that most people can’t see the options in front of them.

For example, when Emily was diagnosed… we chose to do everything we could to give her a great life…

We could have gave her up! Put her in the system and move on with our life. That was an option! Not an option we considered… but the fact that we didn’t consider it doesn’t mean the option wasn’t there.

One of us could have walked out on our family, walked away from the struggles we were facing. We actually talked about it and we both agreed that we were in this for life. Neither one of us wanted to walk out. This was an option, just not one we were interested in.

We could have kept her but not invest any time and energy in helping her grow and learn…. again, not a choice we were willing to make.

We had lots of options, the fact that none of them were attractive to us really helped us make a decision.

…

Choices come in various forms!

The thing with choices is that a lot of people don’t see the options right in front of them!!!

Weird but true!!!

Most people don’t realize that from the moment they wake-up for the day, they are making decisions. Get up or not, shower or not, what to have for breakfast and so on…

When Emily was in elementary school, we decided that the middle school in our neighbourhood wasn’t where we wanted Emily to go. Other parents of kids with special needs were telling me how horrible this school was and I couldn’t understand why they didn’t do something about it. This attitude of there is nothing I can do to make school more enjoyable for my kids just amazed me!!!

I started looking into options for middle school when Emily started 5th grade. One year out. Should our out of bound request didn’t get approved, we were willing to sell the house and relocate near the school we picked!

Again, this past January, when we filled our out of bound request for high school, we were willing to relocate in order to be sure Emily gets in the high school we wanted for her. The high school where her classmates from the last 3 years would be going to. We wanted her to stay with them.

We got the high school approval letter on Emily’s birthday this past Tuesday. She is going to the high school we all wanted her to go to.

At dinner on Tuesday Emily was quite happy to tell her Nana that we are not selling our house yet! 🙂

We decided 4 years ago to make sure Emily was going to a school where she would be accepted and treated with respect… we did what needed to be done because we decided it was worth it!

…

Choices!!!

They are a great thing!

We make them every single day…

Do you see the choices in front of you or do you go along your day assuming you have no options?