I filled a small bucket with soapy water and plopped in a sponge. I then supervised as Kevin scrubbed away every mark of his graffiti. The problem was he seemed to be having fun cleaning, so I decided that we would extend our grafitti removal project. So with bucket in hand we went to the two other special education classes and did some more cleaning until it was not fun anymore. Each teacher also played along, acting horrified that Kevin would write graffiti on his classroom walls and toys and talking about what a bad choice that was. When we walked back to our classroom, Kevin barely cleared the ground with the bucket he was lugging.
"Kevin, do we do graffiti at school?"
"No ma'am!"
"What happens if you do graffiti?"
" You clean it. And clean more."
"So are you going to draw on my walls again?"
"No Ma'am!"

After that day Kevin turned into a marker monitor, making sure they all had their lids on and that none left the tables. He always reminded me to put them away in the cupboard after we used them. And he never wrote on anything other than paper and appropriate materials again. :)

Most mothers give their infants life once, which is a beautiful miracle, but my mother spent a year in her life breathing life back into me and giving me life again and again. I was born an apparently healthy infant, bald as bald could possibly be and full of attitude, and giving no signs of the genetic disease that was already written in every cell of my body. When I was five months old my mother was rocking me to sleep while watching a movie on TV. She did not want to miss the end of the movie, so she laid me on a blanket on the ground rather than taking me upstairs to my nursery. When the movie finished she discovered I was grayish blue, not breathing, and had no detectable heart beat. The monster in my genes had decided to rear its head in the form of relentless apnea. My mother learned infant cpr, I was hooked to a monitor, and no one ever slept through the night. Our address became well known to every fire fighter in our small town and they did not bother to knock on the door if a call came in, they came through the door one way or another. Yet the apnea was vicious. After one particularly prolonged episode at 6 months of age, my parents were taken to the little room no parents ever want to go to and informed that I was profoundly and terminally brain damaged with a life expectancy of less than six months. The recommended course of treatment was to leave me hospitalized or placed in an institution until I died naturally of another episode. My mother refused to give up on me. She informed the doctors that I was a child, not a used car that you return and replace because it is broken. I went home with her that day. The apnea continued up until my first birthday, but my parents persevered and delighted as I met every milestone. When I started to read at two and a half, my mother realized that she was in for a totally different ride than any of the doctors had tried to prepare her for.
My mom has been my biggest supporter. She believes in me even when I am unsure. Without her support I never would have had the courage to apply to Vanderbilt, let alone done well enough on the scholarship weekend to win a full Deans honors scholarship. Without her support I never would have had the courage to apply to Virginia to teach and I would have missed some of the most amazing children that touched my life, and an incredible friendship with a friend unlike any other. Without her support I would have never had the strength to go through the torturous ordeal of relearning to eat in early 2009 when I had lost the ability to swallow, and I would be dependent on some sort of artificial nutrition. Without her I would not be me. I would not have my very keen sense of justice, my heart for others, my willingness to risk getting hurt to love those who need it, my passionate way of living life, my foundation of faith, my wicked sense of humor, and so much more.
So not only has my mother given me life more times that we can count, but she has shaped that life and given me the strength and support to be the person I have become. I an blessed to be her daughter, honored to be her friend.

As a teacher I was never beyond using any creative, unusual, unorthodox and flat out one of a kind system to help a child learn to communicate. Duke was a just turned four year old in my preschool class who had a generally cheerful disposition, a brilliant smile, an absolute love for music and anything with wheels, and significant delays due to autism. He did not imitate, he did not vocalize speech sounds, he did not use signs or picture symbols and he did not take kindly to anyone who tried to place these demands upon him. And when I say he did not take kindly to it, I mean that this four and a half foot tall four year old who was built like a line backer went into full combat meltdown. He once attempted to break my classroom window, and I was astonished by the durability of window panes from the 1960s.
I noticed that Duke would sit transfixed during music activities, especially activities that involved instruments. So I began a "make it up as you go along, but take data to save your arse" language program. During direct instruction sessions, I would have him sit with me, and between us would be a drum. I would say a word that I wanted him to imitate, and then tap the rhythm of the word out on the drum. Then I would say the word again and guide him through tapping out the rhythm. If the word was a feasibly small object I then went through tapping the real object on the drum to the rhythm of the word and having him do the same. This worked best with highly preferred objects like toy cars and trucks, a spoon (to get a bite of pudding), a cup (for a drink of chocolate milk), and for fun sing song turn taking activities ("Hello Duke" "Hello Teacher"). I honestly had no idea if this would work or if I would have a proven failure of a communication education system. For Duke, it clicked. He heard the rhythm and music of the words and associated them with the objects.
After about a month I could hold Duke's most favorite item, a toy car, out of his reach and wait for a vocalization without the drum (we had practiced and learned it there). He would try every behavior pattern possible to wear me down and convince me to just surrender and give him the car. At first it took an average of 10 minutes of a tantrum before he would make eye contact and in what I can only imagine was pure disgust say "car". This soon spread to bubbles, light (for a light up toy), cookie, and so many more words. His vocabulary grew steadily, and the average time of negative behaviors before he would vocalize a word got down to as low as an average of 15 seconds with many spoken words without any negative behaviors.
The drum then became a way of introducing language in a social turn taking situation. I speak/drum first and then you answer/drum back. The rhythm of speaking to another person. I had never appreciated the music in a conversation before, but as we tapped out the beat I heard it in all my conversations and in the rhythm of my every day language. I could give him all the words in the world, but it was not until I found the beat that he was able to utilize them and discover language. Now even when I listen to classical music, or jazz, or any music without vocal accompaniments I still hear a language and speech in the talking drums.

* Photo courtesy of istockphoto

I find myself remembering a specific little girl that I had the honor of teaching as a practicum student in college, a little girl who at the age of three taught me lessons that I am still learning in my own life at the age of twenty eight. Josie was one of a kind, a brilliant just turned three year old with a twin brother who had significant disabilities. Josie was paralyzed from the mid chest down due to a spinal cord stroke as a premature infant, which impacted her diaphragm and thus her ability to speak loudly and clearly, but in all other ways of development she was above and beyond expectations. She was so patient with her brother, and she was his protector making sure that he was never overlooked at circle time or during activities in the classroom.
One day during free play in the classroom, otherwise known as barely controlled chaos, I observed that Josie was over at the fine motor/art center and she was methodically wheeling herself back and forth from the shelf to the table. What I saw amazed me. She had apparently been unable to obtain anyone's attention over the din of her peers shouts and laughter and yelling, so she decided to get the materials she needed by herself to draw. The paper had posed no difficulty, but the basket of crayons was too large and awkward for her to place on her lap and wheel over to the table. So instead she was putting one single crayon on her lap, wheeling over to the table, placing it beside her stack of paper, and then wheeling back for another color. I watched in amazement at her determination. She was not frustrated, she was not angry that it was taking her so long to do what another child could have done in a single grasp, she was not bitter. She was focused and proud of her ability to achieve her goal even if it took her more than a dozen trips to retrieve all of the colors she wanted. I had to sit on my hands to prevent myself from jumping in to "rescue" her. When she finally had every color she wanted and had secured herself before the table to begin coloring a smile brighter than any I had ever seen lit up her face as she surveyed what she had accomplished. She had done it - it may have taken a little longer, it may have been done a little differently, but she had done it! As she started to color, I slid into a chair next to her and we had the cutest little conversation.
Me: Josie, that is a beautiful picture! Can I color with you?
Josie: Sure! But you have to get your own crayons!!
Josie, thank you for teaching me how to get my own crayons, and how to be so proud of every success, and how to never give up when it seems like you can never move the mountain (or crayon basket). I was your student far more than you were mine!!

Lately I have been reflecting backwards on just how much my life has changed, and I realized that there are big things I miss from my "before" life but also a lot of little things. So I decided to put together a list of the things that I miss the most. I also decided that I would then complement that list by listing all of the things that I truly appreciate that have happened in the "after" life.

Memories
* Driving a car
* Hiking
* Reaching things on higher shelves without having to ask for help
* Being able to wear low socks (AFO braces require high, basically knee socks underneath them)
* Being able to buy shoes easily (AFOs do not fit in hardly any shoes - thus I rock converse with dresses)
* Being able to attend concerts (I lost that to the dysautonomia)
* Being able to take a shower instead of a bath
* Painting my toe nails in less than a two hour process
* Carrying a purse instead of a backpack
* Not looking up to everyone (I have a great view of belt buckles and backsides)
* Teaching
* Swimming without a flotation device
* Being able to break a glass and not have to call someone to come clean it up for me so I don't pop a wheelchair tire
* Wearing my polka dot rainboots and splashing in puddles
* Living in Virginia
* Sitting in a chair without strapping my feet down
* Not glowing in the dark from countless MRIs, CTs, Xrays, and other medical tests

Appreciations
* I totally skip the line at airport security and am through in about 15 minutes total no matter what
* I can run into people who annoy me and then play innocent and no one yells at the chick in the wheelchair
* I am saving a ton of money not having to pay for gas
* I have learned to truly live in the moment because nothing is guaranteed and to appreciate all I have as I am so blessed
* I have some of the most amazing friends and family in the world who have walked this journey with me and never let me fall so low that I could not get up again (Steph, you are an angel)
* God has a great sense of humor
* Laughter can do amazing things (Steph, you made me laugh in a place and time I thought I would never laugh - the tree and the words "hang in there"...priceless)
* Doing the right thing is always worth the cost
* I have a totally new appreciation and perspective on what my kids go through and all that is asked of them, and they are now my heroes even more than before if that is possible
* Every time I was at my weakest God sent me just the person I needed to be there for me and offer me the words and support I needed - a nurse at PWH, a dietician at GWUH, my home healthcare nurse, my amazing friends, prince not so charming
* I have learned to dance a new way to the music of my heart
* Watching how Little Bit sees me, how she asks questions but sees me as just the same Aunt Beth has been the most priceless treasure - my leg muscles may not work so well anymore but I am still her silly Aunt Beth and she loves "helping" by pushing me (even if she can not quite see over the wheelchair to steer!)
* Relearning to eat all over again has taught me to appreciate so many little things that seem natural and go unnoticed until they become a struggle - I appreciate each breath I take, each time I can coordinate movement, each sensation I feel, each swallow, each heartbeat, each taste of food not pureed or from gerber!
* Knowing that God has been with me all of the way and that He has plans to turn what to many would seem a disaster into something beautiful to glorify him!