One thing my husband and I have done pretty consistently is have a Family Home Evening every Monday night. It helps us to spend a little more time with our children. I think because we started when our kids were pretty young, it has been easier to keep going. This last week we decided to go to the Museum of Art at the nearby university. The exhibit was called "Windswept". The artist had a semi-truck full of willow saplings brought in and then created the exhibit on-site. It was kind of cool.
This is a juvenile fiction book about a young girl named Melody with severe cerebral palsy. Her body doesn't allow her to feed herself, speak, or do much at all. She's very intelligent with a photographic memory but she can't really communicate. Finally, in 5th grade, she gets a "Medi-Talker" which is a computer that speaks what she types in. Finally she has a voice. This book explores what it is like to be severely physically disabled but not mentally disabled. It seems like one of the most frustrating of all scenarios. She is completely aware of all the cruelty (subtle and otherwise) that her classmates inflict on her because they don't really want to include her in their activities. One of the saddest moments in the book comes when she realizes that every one of her special ed classmates is kind, where the "normal" ones are not. Who really has the worse disability? The book was a quick read and fairly enjoyable. Wha...
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