Seven Saturday Snippets: January 12, 2013

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The first week of following a blog schedule has been a relatively big success for this little site. I kept up with most of my planned days, with the exception of Thankful Thursday, which got derailed thanks to fighting insurance companies over therapies, a post for another day.  Thanks to link ups with Ellen Stumbo, Andi at Bringing the Sunshine, and Ellen at Love That Max, I have had over 600 page views and gained some new followers. I am so excited! If you like what I'm doing, please subscribe.  I also have a Facebook page, a Twitter account, and I'm also on Pinterest. Please stop by and join :)

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I cannot tell you enough how much I am looking forward to starting the Mommies of Miracles/Different Dream Book Study this week called You Have Time to Read? This inaugural book study, A Different Dream for My Child  by Jolene Philo, will be spread out over a 12 week online course. For more information, please visit the Mommies for Miracles page at http://www.mommiesofmiracles.com/resources/book-study/.

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Thank you so much to Heather at Team Aidan for sharing a wonderful post about her older son Liam. Liam became a published writer last week when his editorial for Pediatric Nursing Journal about life as an older brother to a child with special needs hit the stands. This post was especially touching to me, mostly because I wonder what Matthew's life would be like if he had a sibling and how having a sibling with special needs would impact them. Please stop by Heather's blog and read Liam's editorial, not only will you will be touched by his love and devotion to his brother Aidan, but you will also get to meet a young man who is wise beyond his years. I am also very excited to say that Liam will be doing a guest post here in the very near future.

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For the first time since 1995 when Heather Whitestone won the title, I am motivated to watch The Miss American Pageant. Why? Because for the first time in pageant history a contest with Autism will be competing.  Alexis Wineman, Miss Montana, was diagnosed with PDD-NOS at the age of 11 and faced taunting and bullying due to her condition. Her pageant platform is "Normal Is Just a Dryer Setting" which I LOVE. She didn't make it to the crown, but she did get picked for the top 16 and raised a lot of awareness for Autism.

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One of my favorite stories of the week is about Evan Moss, an 8 year old with Tuberous Sclerosis and Epilepsy, who wrote a book to raise money for his own service dog. Evan raised  $42,000, enough to fund his service dog Mindy and to help 7 other families. You can visit Evan's blog Dog 4 Evan to learn more about the service dog placement process



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I just saw this post tonight on one of my new favorite blogs, As We Seek, So We Shall Find, and I love it so much. In the beginning of our journey into "Special Needs World", I have never felt more alone and out of sync with life than I did at that time. And sometimes still do, but it's much better than it was then because I have people I can turn to and talk to who understand what we're going through.  I wish I had been given this post, that I had known someone who could have sat down and talked to me, someone who would have listened and let me break down and get all of the ugly thoughts out of my system. I hope that by sharing Mags' post, someone who needs this letter will see it.



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This week the biggest news in our house is that Matthew finally got his gait trainer! He has been using one in therapy for a couple of months now and is definitely not a big fan. Needless to say he was not thrilled when our favorite mobility man, Sam, came in with one yesterday morning. The first time getting in the harness went as well as expected, but the second time magic happened. He realized he could move and took two steps back and started dragging his feet to move to the side. It will be so much easier when he gets his knee immobilizers, but his journey to movement has started and with more than a single step.

For more Seven Snippets, visit Bringing the Sunshine!