When Emily was little I worried about her future.
To put this in context, you need to remember that in October 1999…
Just days after the picture above was taken… Genetic counselors a at the Montreal Children Hospital told us that due to Emily having Cri Du Chat syndrome, her future meant…
No walking!
No talking!
No understanding us!
No showing emotions!
No eating solid food!
At no point did they say this was a worst case scenario.
There was no doubt in their mind that this was going to be Emily’s life and we could see them feeling sorry for us.
We decided to give Emily the best life possible and that we would adjust to her needs and limitations.
This past weekend, was busy…
We had a roofing company over, putting a new roof on our house…
Meanwhile, Emily was starting her Cheer fall sessions. It was time to talk goals and prepare a lesson plan
She loved cheer this past summer so she’s ready for more. Remember this picture?
An hour after cheer was done, Emily was at her baseball’s team end of summer game and party. 
Emily and all her team mates got team jackets! How cool is that?
We had 39 players this year, divided into 2 groups.
We concluded Saturday with attending a hockey game.
Sunday morning, Emily was volunteering at her riding club. When coaches are tested to move up in their certifications, they need riders and Emily wants to help.
Emily helped coaches from other clubs on Sunday and they loved her 🙂
We had a busy weekend!
None of these would be possible if it wasn’t for amazing people getting together and wanting to provide opportunities for kids with special needs.
Thank you Cheer Olympia
http://www.olympiacheerleading.com/mobile/en/
Thank you Field of Dreams
http://monctonfishercats.com/fishercats2015/index.php/field-of-dreams
And thank you Cavalier riding club
http://cavalierridingclub.weebly.com
You are amazing and although I was grateful for this busy weekend to be over, I am even more grateful for the opportunities you are giving Emily and many others.
Thank you to your board of directors or owners and thank you to the volunteers who give their time, energy and positivity.
All of you, are part of our family now!
In the coming weeks, I will share more about Emily’s riding club as she starts her fall session this week and I will let you know more about Emily’s baseball team and our fully accessible baseball field project…
Lessons from my daughter 
That is so great! That sounds like the kind of busy weekend worth having. (And Emily got to meet a giant pita sandwich!) 😀
There is nothing that compares to meeting a giant pita sandwich :). He is the mascot of one of the main sponsors for her team! It was tiring but a great weekend none the less.
That’s great. Busy weekends are tiring, but personally I don’t mind that if it’s time spent doing something worthwhile. Your weekend definitely seems to fall into that category. 🙂
Thank you! It was! Just had a look at your blog, I’ll be reading when I have a minute!
Thank you! Please feel free to drop by if you have the chance. You’ll be more than welcome any time. 🙂
I love this! Doctors never can be certain what our children will be like. They give us these grim prognosis not knowing us our the capacity of our children to triumph over their words. Love the pictures and the hope.
Thank you! Life is never boring and we all worked hard at giving Emily what she needed to become who she’s supposed to be. Thank you for reading!
What a beautiful life for your beautiful miracle! I love it! ❤ 👍 It’s just simply astonishing how some docs will be so flat out negative with their prognosis, and then others will completely deny any disease whatsoever as they did with me for decades…
I’m just so happy to see that you and Emily both have such a lovely, lively and wonderful life with all things considered! 😘 💝
Emily was 15 months when we received her diagnosis. For the first 12 months, the doctors we saw kept telling us she was fine and that we were over-reacting. Nothing was wrong…
It wasn’t years but those 12 months were difficult… Really difficult.
We are lucky to have Emily in our life. She’s amazing and because of her and her syndrome we’ve met many great people.
We do have a wonderful life.
Thank you for reading. 😊
Wow that’s amazing. I’m so glad that it’s all worked out for the best for you guys! Sending you my love! 😙 💞 Melanie
How awesome is she? This post made me tear up! Good for her! And a special thanks to those who help provide normalcy and opportunity to these amazing kids!
She’s pretty awesome! And I am really grateful for all the organizations and volunteers who are providing these opportunities.
We think the same thing every time we go to an Autistic event or activity. These volunteers, of which we are as we can, are amazing, patient, and compassionate people who give of their time and energy. It’s a gift that we could never repay.
🙂
Whoa! (no pun intended). Just how amazing and fun. Those doctors must have got that girl mixed up with someone else!
Kids with cri du chat syndrome are, in my opinion, on a wide spectrum. Maybe one day, the genetic analysis of the short arm(p) of the 5th chromosome will be telling us more about the outcome. As for now, nobody knows when they get their diagnosis how profoundly affected their loved ones will be.
I understand that the doctors were probably doing what they thought was best. Just the dire prognosis seemed more painful than it needed to be…or turned out to be. I love your daughter’s smile 🙂
Thank you. A couple of years ago, I reached out to the hospital to let them know how it felt.
What a marvelous testimony to the resilience and infinite capacity of the human spirit to triumph over problems. And just look at all of the opportunities you have given her. Admittedly with the help of many organizations but I’m willing to bet that there are many special needs children who don’t get these chances because the parents either can’t help, won’t help or simply don’t check into the potential to help their children. Well done mom and I love the pictures. She was a beautiful baby and she’s an amazing young lady.
Thank you! I admit that we’ve had to do some digging and we worked with her on many skills. We are lucky to live somewhere where people believe in opportunities!
I had an equally busy weekend – started early with a visit from a friend in an 8 tonne fire truck
Our weekend had a fire truck too! The neighbors car caught on fire!!! I had never seen a car being hosed off by firefighters before.
This truck was recently retired – it’s going to be converted to a support truck for a friend’s marathon motorbike rally of 7500km raising funds for SIDSandKids Queensland….. I was a tad worried about my neighbours thinking that our house was on fire