Education | Lessons from my daughter

I haven’t written in what seems like a really long time and for that I am sorry!

We’ve enjoyed life!

I promise to update you on everything but in the meantime, let me tell you about board games.

In our house, we play board games following rules we make-up!

The rules on the boxes are normally a little too complicated for Emily. Games for younger kids, she can manage but games for teenagers/young adults are another story.

Some games we don’t play, others, we give Emily more time or play with our cards on the table…

This works perfectly for the 3 of us but enters cousins and other relatives, it gets complicated again.

It’s difficult to explain to younger cousins why Emily can’t do things like they can. I don’t want them to look at her differently, I want them to get to know her. Once you know her, the struggles and challenges are secondary.

First, she’s Emily. Yes, she has cri du chat syndrome but she’s Emily!

Back to our game night.

Last year, we discovered “Headbanz”. Emily’s cousins were all younger than her and speaking French. They were faster than her and understood what they needed to do.

Last week, we played again.

This time, we all had a blast.

Emily knows her Disney characters more than the boys so I picked cards accordingly and helped a little but that wasn’t the fun part.

The fun part was when the cheating started. None of them were subtle about it. All of them did it and the dads joined in.

We played a game! All of us! Regardless of our age differences. From 2 to 42 years old, part English and part French. Some cheating… And lots of laughter.

We played a game!

For most, this is a simple feat. For us, it was amazing.

To see Emily having so much fun was heart warming.

So, we bought another game.

We changed the rules a little.

It’s just the 3 of us. Everybody else is gone home… So we played our way and discovered that Emily can draw!

We had 9 cards on the table and we had to find which card she was drawing.

We are still discussing this last one!

We say sheep. She says lion.

What do you think?

On this beautiful Sunday, allow me to introduce you to Bonnie and her family.

Hello Bonnie, can you tell me a little bit about your family?

Our family is made up of me, my husband Blaine, our daughter Angelina(10) and our son Turner (8) I also have a step daughter that doesn’t live with us. She’s 19. I was 32 when Turner was born. Blaine was 34. We had no struggles during pregnancy.

Can you tell me more about your loved one who has cri du chat syndrome?

Turner was diagnosed just after he turned 2. He had raspy breathing and snoring which lead us to discover he had laryngomalacia, a soft voice box. When they saw him they asked about his not walking and talking at the age of 2. That lead us to an amazing pediatrician and genetics testing.

Can you tell me about doctor appointments, therapies and/or school?

Our home is located 800 km/ 500 miles from the nearest center that can execute these types of testing. Travel is not optional and with Turners diagnosis, we began traveling more than ever.

Turner is a strong headed, bossy, sensitive kid. He’s typical in many ways. His best friend is probably his sister. She can understand the struggling words he chokes out, and knows how to make him laugh.

His school has been a major partner in his progress. They have found his words, they have taught him to count. He can read about 200 sight words!!! I nearly cry just thinking about it!! They taught him to potty train, ride a bicycle with training wheels and are now working on riding a scooter. They even supported us by buying jewelry when we took the puzzling piece challenge to earn him an iPad. We couldn’t do it without them.

Tell me a success story!

This winter, the boy that would never talk or walk, learned to read and ice skate! There’s nothing more Canadian than ice skating!!

Anything else you would like the world to know!

Turner is not a common kid. He has no fear and will stop at nothing to do or get what he wants. That, I believe, will lead him to successes beyond our imaginations. ❤️

Turners diagnosis encouraged his step sister Haley to enroll in post secondary school to become a Special Needs Teaching Assistant. We are quite proud of her.