Welcome to Kelsey Can!: July 2010

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Help us Raise Money for IDC

http://www.firstgiving.com/kelseycan

Kelsey goes to the Lee Ann Britain center each week, several times a week to go to class with other children and for individual therapies.

It is a great place which Kelsey loves. She kicks her legs in excitement when I stop the car, knowing we are at school.

Kelsey swims, plays in their gym, works with her hands, and works on communicating her needs while there.

We ask for your support in helping Kelsey and other kids like her to meet their full potential.

http://www.firstgiving.com/kelseycan

Monday, July 12, 2010

Counting Our Blessings

This little girl of mine never ceases to amaze me.

Tonight was the first time we got these puzzle pieces out. It was the first time I asked her to do anything like this with numbers.

Where does she pick this stuff up?

I am so proud.

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Presume competence

I really liked this blog post and the links within.

It is the theory I have believed in all along with Kelsey. Presume intelligence and figure out a way to help her get her body to cooperate enough to show us/achieve what she wants to do.

http://teachinglearnerswithmultipleneeds.blogspot.com/2010/06/living-least-dangerous-assumption.html

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WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT MY CHILD

Remember that he is, first of all, my child.

Let me see him smiling in his sleep and let me think about how handsome he is
and not about how delayed that smile was in coming.

Help me not lose sight of my son in the shadow of his limitations
I know that you care for my child and that you work hard with him.

I need your expertise to help him become all that he is capable of being.

You need my help in understanding who he really is
and in following through at home with things that are important.

Remember, though, that you send him home at night and have weekends off and paid vacations.

Let me have the luxury of having a vacation, sometimes physically,
sometimes just emotionally, for a day, a week, a month, without your judging me.

I will be there for him when you are long gone.

I love my child with an intensity that you can only imagine.

If on a given day I am tired or cross with him, listen to me,
lighten my burden, but do not judge me.

Celebrate with me, rejoice in who he is and who he will become
but forgive me if from time to time I shed a tear for who he might have been.

- Author Unknown

The Mountain
Author: Jim Stovall
From: You Don't Have to Be Blind to See
Publisher: Thomas Nelson Publishers

There were two warring tribes in the Andes, one that lived in the lowlands and the other high in the mountains. The mountain people invaded the lowlanders one day, and as part of their plundering of the people, they kidnapped a baby of one of the lowlander families and took the infant with them back up into the mountains.

The lowlanders didn't know how to climb the mountain. They didn't know any of the trails that the mountain people used, and they didn't know where to find the mountain people or how to track them in the steep terrain.

Even so, they sent out their best party of fighting men to climb the mountain and bring the baby home.

The men tried first one method of climbing and then another. They tried one trail and then another. After several days of effort, however, they had climbed only several hundred feet.

Feeling hopeless and helpless, the lowlander men decided that the cause was lost, and they prepared to return to their village below.

As they were packing their gear for the descent, they saw the baby's mother walking toward them. They realized that she was coming down the mountain that they hadn't figured out how to climb.

And then they saw that she had the baby strapped to her back. How could that be?

One man greeted her and said, "We couldn't climb this mountain. How did you do this when we, the strongest and most able men in the village, couldn't do it?"

She shrugged her shoulders and said, "It wasn't your baby."

Psalm 139 (New International Version)

1 O LORD, you have searched me
and you know me.

2 You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.

3 You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.

4 Before a word is on my tongue
you know it completely, O LORD.

5 You hem me in—behind and before;
you have laid your hand upon me.

6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.

7 Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?

8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,

10 even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.

11 If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,"

12 even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.

13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.

14 I praise you because I am fearfully and
wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.

15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,

16 your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.

17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!

18 Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand.
When I awake,
I am still with you.

19 If only you would slay the wicked, O God!
Away from me, you bloodthirsty men!

20 They speak of you with evil intent;
your adversaries misuse your name.

21 Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD,
and abhor those who rise up against you?

22 I have nothing but hatred for them;
I count them my enemies.

23 Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.

24 See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.

"but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint."
-Isaiah 40:31 (New International Version)

"To accomplish great things,we must not only act, but also dream;not only plan, but also believe.”
- Anatole France

“Never interrupt someone doing what you said couldn’t be done.”
-Amelia Earhart

"If Children have the ability to ignore odds and percentages, then maybe we can all learn from them. When you think about it, what other chance is there but to hope? We have two options, medically and emotionally: give up, or fight like hell".
-Lance Armstrong

"Don't live down to expectations. Go out there and do something remarkable."
- Wendy Wasserstein

“When one door closes another door opens; but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us.”
- Helen Keller

"With everything that has happened to you, you can either feel sorry for yourself or treat what has happened as a gift. Everything is either an opportunity to grow or an obstacle to keep you from growing. You get to choose."
- Wayne Dyer

"Don't waste life in doubts and fears; spend yourself on the work before you, well assured that the right performance of this hour's duties will be the best preparation for the hours and ages that will follow it."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Shake It Off And Step Up

A parable is told of a farmer who owned an old mule. The mule fell into the farmer's well. The farmer heard the mule 'braying' - or - whatever mules do when they fall into wells. After carefully assessing the situation, the farmer sympathized with the mule, but decided that neither the mule nor the well was worth the trouble of saving. Instead, he called his neighbors together and told them what had happened...and enlisted them to help haul dirt to bury the old mule in the well and put him out of his misery.

Initially, the old mule was hysterical! But as the farmer and his neighbors continued shoveling and the dirt hit his back...a thought struck him. It suddenly dawned on him that every time a shovel load of dirt landed on his back...HE SHOULD SHAKE IT OFF AND STEP UP! This he did, blow after blow.

"Shake it off and step up...shake it off and step up...shake it off and step up!" he repeated to encourage himself. No matter how painful the blows, or distressing the situation seemed the old mule fought "panic" and just kept right on SHAKING IT OFF AND STEPPING UP!

You're right! It wasn't long before the old mule, battered and exhausted, STEPPED TRIUMPHANTLY OVER THE WALL OF THAT WELL! What seemed like it would bury him, actually blessed him...all because of the manner in which he handled his adversity.

THAT'S LIFE! If we face our problems and respond to them positively, and refuse to give in to panic, bitterness, or self-pity...THE ADVERSITIES THAT COME ALONG TO BURY US USUALLY HAVE WITHIN THEM THE POTENTIAL TO BENEFIT AND BLESS US! Remember that FORGIVENESS--FAITH--PRAYER-- PRAISE and HOPE...all are excellent ways to "SHAKE IT OFF AND STEP UP" out of the wells in which we find ourselves!

- Author Unknown