My cheerleader!

I’ve told you about Emily’s desire to cheer twice already.

Fall 2013 : To be a cheerleader

Summer 2015 : Cheer Bows

This past summer, she found her place at Cheer Olympia and when fall arrived, a new team was formed!

The Pillars 

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Our team, has 5 athletes, 3 coaches and 1 awesome filler 🙂

Our athletes are awesome and my fear on Sunday morning was that the other athletes and their families might not see how awesome our girls are!

The music played at a lower volume as to not overwhelm our girls.

The crowd was a little quieter to help them as well.

But that didn’t stop the other cheer teams from clapping and cheering for our team.  Soon enough, the crowd joined in too!

Next time, I say we crank the volume on their music 🙂

After their first go at it, our girls sat back down and cheered for the other teams.

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Each team was performing twice!

Here are a couple of things you would not know by looking at them.

  • After their first number, one of our athlete had what her mom calls a “small seizure”.  I don’t know how familiar you are with seizures but in my mind (someone who doesn’t know seizures), there is no such thing as small seizures.  It’s a seizure or a big seizure.  Well, would you believe that our girl was back on the mat for their second appearance?  And she rocked it!
  • One of the other mom sitting next to me who was also emotional was telling me, “would you believe it took 2 years of physio therapy for her to walk?”.  She was talking about her daughter.
  • This is also true of Emily, doctors and therapists agreed she would never walk.

If you were to ask me what diagnosis the other girls on the team have, I truly can’t tell you as I have never asked their parents and I will not asked them as to me, they are Emily’s team!  None of them are their diagnosis and all of them are hard workers!

Those girls are amazing!

After the showcase, most of us went for a late lunch.   One team!  Which I suspect will soon be one big family!

It took at least 6 years of trying dance classes, cheer groups and looking at everything out there….  Emily never gave up on her dream to be a cheerleader.

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So today, Emily is a cheerleader, with the bow, the hair, the make-up, the uniform, the team jacket and a team where she is accepted, respected and celebrated!

A team where each member is accepted, respected and celebrated!

Emily is a cheerleader.

Thank you Olympia cheerleading 

Thank you Colleen, Lorraine, Celine, Megan and Chloe!

 

 

 

 

What some take for granted we cherish and celebrate…

From the get go, we knew Emily was different. 

Nobody believed us but we knew. 

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What we didn’t know was why and what it meant. 

She didn’t have that survival instinct that makes a newborn latch on their mother or on a bottle…

She didn’t seem to understand how to drink at all…

We knew she was different. 

We struggled immensely while trying to feed her but we never gave up. 

15 months later we had a diagnosis of cri du chat syndrome.

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Emily’s syndrome has changed our life’s.  

What many take for granted, we cherish. Accomplishments that are too small for others to notice, we celebrate. 

Emily’s diagnosis has changed us. 

In the future weeks, I will repost previous posts that explains what Cri du chat syndrome is and share some of my favorite blogs showing how Emily is defining herself as opposed to allowing her syndrome to define her. 

If you are new at following my blog and want to learn about other families with a child or adult with Cri du chat syndrome, search my site for interviews. 

Emily’s syndrome has given us an extended family of incredible individuals. Come meet them! 

If you want to connect on Twitter, you can find me @plebrass

Or if you prefer Facebook, I just created a page for Lessons from my daughter.  Please look it up. 

Emily loves when I tell her how many followers her blog has.  So please follow and share if you like her stories and enjoy sharing our journey. 

In the meantime, here is a preview of my next post…

  
Yes, after years of wanting to be a cheerleader, Emily did it!

She’s a cheerleader, her team had a showcase over the weekend and are now getting ready for competition season. 

I’m loving how fearless she is!

😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍