Kevin's Healing Journey: Happy 12th Birthday

Sunday, October 9, 2016

Happy 12th Birthday - October 6, 2016

Gulp! Kevin is 12 years old!!!

Kevin's birthday was on Thursday, which is our volunteer day at the nursing home. After Songs of Faith we passed out some treats we brought to share with our new friends and played a balloon toss. Kevin even tolerated having the group sing "Happy Birthday" to him. He especially loved the helium balloons he got to take home.

A couple other favorites to make his day special were birthday videos from his cousins and FaceTime calls with family.

But probably his favorite was getting some much needed free time to play at home after a very busy week. I love it when Kevin plays. He will busy himself going up and down the basement steps. Sometimes bringing toys up from the basement or toys from the family room to the basement. I love hearing him play with his shake and go cars and watching them go. And I absolutely love seeing toys scattered about in a mess on the floor because it means he is playing. He will clean them up but sometimes I like to leave it that way because it makes me smile to know that he did it. Today, he surprised me by asking me to put a music cd in the player. All good things! Maybe his play time will get even more purposeful when he has some free time now that our schedule is so much more busy going out of the house than we are used to.

On Friday, we met Kevin's Aunt Sarah and Cousin Ethan at the Cleveland Zoo.

And on Saturday, the three of us spent the day together by going to Ohio University Homecoming. Jon and I met our freshman year at OU on Homecoming weekend - 25 years ago! This was Kevin's first OU visit. He had big smiles while watching the OU marching band in the parade. We walked around the campus and uptown. While uptown, Kevin and I were outside people watching - while Jon was t-shirt shopping. As we were sitting there, three male college students came up to Kevin. The first guy was walking with forearm crutches and he had some encouraging words for Kevin. As he left, I said a prayer of blessing for him as I thought about all the walking around campus that is required. The other two students were more of a surprise to me. They were just walking by with their friends and made the effort to stop and shake Kevin's hand. It gives me hope for the future.

I'm hoping that my next upcoming posts will be some catch up from the summer.

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My Blog

This blog was created to keep our family and friends updated on Kevin's healing journey. It is also our hope that others may find this blog to give help and hope to other delayed kids.

About Kevin

They told us Kevin would never walk or talk. But with lots of prayers, hard work, and extra hands, he began walking when he was four years old and we continue to have faith and hope as we wait patiently for his speech to develop. Kevin is now eight years old. He is diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy due to a brain-injury he had before birth that was caused by a stroke. In 2006, before Kevin was 2 years old, we found Glenn Doman’s book "What To Do About Your Brain-Injured Child" that had answers to help children with special needs and developmental delays. We began an individualized home treatment program for Kevin immediately and have been dedicated to our program ever since. We spent three years with the Doman family at The Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential (IAHP) and now we are with Matthew and Carol Newell at The Family Hope Center (FHC). Twice a year we return to Philadelphia where Kevin receives a neurological evaluation to determine the progress he has made in the last six months. Then they provide us with an individualized, program that puts me in charge to help Kevin develop and reach his fullest potential.

Do You Know a Delayed Child?

The best recommendation we can give to another parent with a special needs or developmentally delayed child (brain-injured, brain-damaged, mentally retarded, mentally deficient, cerebral-palsied, epileptic, autistic, athetoid, hyperactive, attention deficit disordered, developmentally delayed, or down's) is to read Glenn Doman's book What To Do About Your Brain-Injured Child and/or Dr. Coralee Thompson and Dr. Philip Maffetone's book Healthy Brains, Healthy Children. By simply reading these books, you will gain valuable information to help your child which will begin to unlock the potential your child has. And best of all you will learn that there are other options to helping your child that you can do yourself. We would also highly recommend attending the parent course at FHC or IAHP. To read how our journey began and the successful progress Kevin has had refer to the January 2010 blog archive.