Monday, July 15, 2019

For the Love of Books

When I was growing up, books were in abundance.  Both of my parents loved to read.  We frequently visited our public libraries on the weekends.  On Wednesday nights, we would visit our church's tiny library before church.  I read and re-read the adventures of Encyclopedia Brown, and as I grew older those of Janette Oke.  I attended a small Christian school with an equally small library where I tackled every Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys mystery.  For Christmas when I was in seventh grade, I received the entire Anne of Green Gables book series and read them immediately.  When I began my public school education, the library of my middle school overwhelmed me!  I would check out the maximum amount of books allowed each week, and I was a library helper (nerd alert, but I'm ok with it).  Expanding from the Christian book genre of my childhood, I was exposed to stories of romance and intrigue.  I read everything from Sweet Valley High to The Hobbit (even though that was to impress a boy).  In high school, I read everything that my teachers would throw at me.  I developed a deep love for allegory and satire.  I loved historical fiction.  Even now, when I have the opportunity, I will lose myself in a book for days at a time.

The books I read when I was quite young were mostly faith-based.  With the growing availability of literary styles in middle school, these different aspects of writing would captivate my imagination.  One such poem was Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll.  I remember reading the fanciful and nonsensical language and wondering what in the world was going on?  I read it again.  I knew the story of Alice in Wonderland, but I had never read the novel.  I had watched the Disney adaptation back in the day when the Disney Channel showed classic movies on Friday nights.  The form of writing was so unique to me, that I wanted to read more.  I checked out Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and my love for fantasy writing began.  I appreciated the literal representation of creatures like the dragon fly, rocking horse fly and bread-and-butterfly.  I remember thinking, "that sounds exactly like how I pictured things in my head when I was little". 

As I grew older, I kept learning about the different types of literature.  When I was in college, I took a British Literature class where we discussed the interesting life and works of Lewis Carroll.  I learned that the writing of Alice's Adventures is Wonderland is what started children's literature, and that Carroll was the pioneer who made the way for stories written for children. At the same time, I was working as an after-school teacher for elementary school-aged kiddos and was a tutor at the local elementary school.  I knew stories and poems and plays and books would speak to my little friends.  I began my own collection of children's books while in college.  My Mama gifted my an entire box of Robert MunschArthur, and Jan Brett books to have on-hand.  This collection grew as I became a Nanny, a teacher's assistant, a babysitter, a Mama, and an Aunt.  I love that the kiddos in my life associate me with reading.

My love for Alice grew, too.  While I do have an extensive Mickey Mouse collection ('cause I'm all about that Disney), I realized recently that my oldest and most intentional Disney collection is that of Alice's world.  I have several copies of different adaptations of the books.  I enjoy the various film versions of the story.  My sister gave me my first Alice coffee mug when I lived in Florida.  She and I purchased tea sets together in Virginia, and mine was modeled after the Red Queen.  A sweet friend gave me an exquisite tea pot on theme.  My children have found me little trinkets or drawn me pictures from the silly, sweet realm.  When I had to downsize from a big house to a tiny apartment, many Mickey items had to fall by the wayside, but all the Alice memorabilia stayed with me. 

I was so excited to learn that the Upcountry History Museum in Greenville, SC was housing a Wonderland exhibit.  My family and I visited this past weekend, and it was such a treat.  On display, there are illustrations on loan from the Smithsonian.  There are "new" pieces of art as Alice has been reimagined by artist, Charles Santore.  There is information about Lewis Carroll.  The highlight for us was seeing the costumes and models from Tim Burton's interpretation of Alice in Wonderland.  If you live locally, I would definitely recommend going to check this out whether you are a fan of Alice or not.  If you enjoy the written word, you will find this exhibit to be a treat!

Is there a book, story, poem, play that you loved as a child?   Can you remember the first thing you read that made you think?  That engaged your imagination?  I would love to hear from you!

Friday, May 3, 2019

Surviving Summer 2019


It’s that time of year again.  School is coming to an end, and the free time of summer is calling!  This post includes free or cheap things to do in the Asheville area with your kiddos.  So, get out your calendar and make some memories over the next few months!

Movies

The Summer Movie Clubhouse shows films every Wednesday and Thursday at 10am beginning in June.  At Cinemark, you can choose to pay $1 per ticket OR purchase a punch card for $5 punch card for admission to 10 movies!  What a deal.  The projected films and dates are:
6/19 & 6/20—The Grinch
6/26 & 6/27—How to Train Your Dragon
7/3 & 7/4—Smallfoot
7/10 & 7/11—Kung Fu Panda
7/17 & 7/18—The LEGO Movie
7/24 & 7/25—The SpongeBob Movie
7/31 & 8/1—Sherlock Gnomes
8/7 & 8/8—Hotel Transylvania 3
8/14 & 8/15—Despicable Me 3

AMC Theaters host a Summer Movie Camp.  For $4, you get a ticket to a kid-friendly film and a KidsPack on Wednesdays.  The site doesn’t have a lot of information at the present, but they do have a list of projected titles:
Trolls
The LEGO Movie 2
Hotel Transylvania 3
Peter Rabbit
Wonder Park
Teen Titans Go
Smallfoot
How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World
The House with Clocks in the Walls

I was unable to find the link to Regal’s Summer Movie Express, but Biltmore Park had information on their events page.  I would check with the theater before going!  According to the page, $1 movies will be shown on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings at 10:00am for nine weeks beginning in July.  I will update the films to be shows as soon as I find them.


Books

The Buncombe County Library system will be focusing on space this summer with “A Universe of Stories.  Check the website for the branch closest to you!  Activities include everything from story time to free movies to music to crafts.  This is definitely a wonderful opportunity to make some educational strides over the summer while having fun! 

The summer reading program at Barnes & Noble includes a reading journal and checklist for your child.  At the end of the summer, they can earn a free book!  Also, Barnes & Noble hosts several events and story times!


Out and About

ZOOM Pass
If you have a Buncombe County Library Card, I highly recommend using the Zoom Pass!  If you don’t have a library card, get one for FREE!  https://www.buncombecounty.org/governing/depts/Library/services/zoom-local-attraction-pass.aspx
With this pass, you can reserve FREE tickets to:
Asheville Museum of Science:  https://ashevillescience.org/
Hands On! Children’s Museum: http://handsonwnc.org/
WNC Nature Center: https://wildwnc.org/

In Town
Thomas Wolfe Home https://wolfememorial.com/
WNC Nature Center-Free with ZOOM Pass https://wildwnc.org/plan-your-visit

The Blue Ridge Parkway is an excellent source of adventure over the summer.  If you need to beat the heat and enjoy some cooled air, check out:
The Blue Ridge Parkway Visitor’s Center-free
The Folk Art Center-free
Museum of NC Minerals-free
Moses Cone Memorial Park

Pacing through Plants
The Botanical Gardens at Asheville—free,  https://ashevillebotanicalgardens.org/
NC Arboretum—Free with ZOOM Pass or $14/vehicle https://www.ncarboretum.org/plan-a-visit/hours-directions-prices/

Playgrounds
Lake Julian (406 Overlook Rd. Ext)
Fletcher Park (85 Howard Gap Rd.)
Carrier Park (220 Amboy Rd.)
Azalea Park (498 Azalea Rd. E)
Lake Louise Park (Lake Louise Dr., Weaverville)
Ray Pope Memorial Park (45 Jonestown Rd., Woodfin)
Jake Rusher Park (132 Peachtree St., Arden)
Leicester Community Center (2979 New Leicester Hwy., Leicester)

Pools
Recreation Park Pool (65 Gashes Creek Rd., Asheville)
Cane Creek Pool (590 Lower Brush Creek Rd., Fairview)
Malvern Hills Pool (Asheville)
Erwin Pool (58 Lees Creek Rd., Asheville)
Hominy Valley Pool (25 Twin Lakes Dr., Candler)
East Asheville Rec. Club Pool (40 Bell Rd., Asheville)
Owen Pool (117 Stone Dr., Swannanoa)
Lake Tomahawk Pool (401 Laurel Circle Dr., Black Mt.)


Day Trips
If you feel like taking a mini-vacation, we are blessed to live close to so many beautiful places and interesting people!  Consider packing a lunch and hitting the road for the day. 

West
Wheels Through Time Museum (Maggie Valley)-Th-M, 9-5; $12/adult, $6/children https://wheelsthroughtime.com/
Quilt Trail (Maggie Valley) http://www.quilttrailswnc.org/
Shelton House (Waynesville)-T-Sa, 11-4; $6 adult/$5 student https://sheltonhouse.org/
Scottish Tartan Museum (Franklin)- M-Sa, 10-5; $2/ticket http://scottishtartans.org/museum/aboutus.php
                        Oconaluftee Indian Village-T-Sa, 10-3; $20/adult, $12/student
                        Museum of the Cherokee- Su-M, 9-5; $12/adult
                        Unto These Hills-June-Aug., Nightly, 8pm; $28/ticket
                        Mingo Falls/Socco Falls


East
Swannanoa Valley Museum-T-Sa, 10-5; $5/adult, free/18 and under https://www.history.swannanoavalleymuseum.org/
Mountain Gateway Museum (Old Fort)-T-Sa, 9-5; free https://www.mgmnc.org/
Carson House (Marion)-W-Sa, 10-3; $7/adult http://www.historiccarsonhouse.com/
Valdese—Waldensian Trail of Faith (M-F, 9-5; $10/adult, $6/student), Museum (T-F, 11-2)


South
WNC Military Museum (Brevard)-W-Sa, 10-4; Free https://www.visitnc.com/listing/SZmY/wnc-military-history-museum
Carl Sandburg Historic Site (Flat Rock)-grounds are free, $5 house tour tickets for adults and free for children 16 and under.  There are picnic tables and shaded trails to hike as well as goats to visit!
Hands On! Children’s Museum (Hendersonville)—Free with ZOOM Pass or $5/person http://handsonwnc.org/


North
Rural Heritage Museum (Mars Hill) https://www.mhu.edu/about/what-to-do-and-see/museum/
Farmony Edventure (Marshall) https://www.facebook.com/SafariEdventureNC/


Friday, March 15, 2019

Cerebral Palsy Awareness Month




Smiling Girl
March is Cerebral Palsy Awareness month, and our family has a precious link to this disorder.  My daughter, Cecely, has an atypical form of cerebral palsy.  She has made it her life’s mission to not let the disorder to define her.  Instead, she has chosen to find joy and to encourage others who are dealing with any kind of pain or complication in life.  In light of my amazing daughter, I wanted to share our CP journey.

First of all, what is cerebral palsy?  CP is a neurological disorder that affects the control of the muscular system.  There are many types of CP and several manifestations and levels of CP symptoms.  We have learned that CP is very much an individual disorder.  There are a few main types of CP.  They are: spastic, dyskinetic (athetoid, choreoathetoid, dystonic), ataxic, and mixed.  People with spastic CP have increased muscle tone. This means their muscles are stiff and, as a result, their movements can be awkward…People with dyskinetic CP have problems controlling the movement of their hands, arms, feet, and legs, making it difficult to sit and walk. The movements are uncontrollable and can be slow and writhing or rapid and jerky. Sometimes the face and tongue are affected, and the person has a hard time sucking, swallowing, and talking…People with ataxic CP have problems with balance and coordination. They might be unsteady when they walk. They might have a hard time with quick movements or movements that need a lot of control, like writing. They might have a hard time controlling their hands or arms when they reach for something” and mixed CP is can be just that-a mix of any form (Center for Disease Control and Prevention, https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/cp/facts.html). 

Cecely was due in late-October of 2003.  Her father was in the military and often working on the base or on deployment.  When we were expecting Cecely, we had a plan.  I had read every book and watched various videos preparing me for childbirth, as Cecely was my first baby.  Having the plan in place, Cecely’s father was at work when I went into labor.  We had just moved into our first house the week before.  There were boxes left to unpack, walls to paint, and furniture to buy.  We had not been in the town long enough to know anyone.  Thankfully, my sister was visiting from college to help me get the house ready.  I woke up on an August morning, went into the bathroom and went into premature labor.  My sister called 9-1-1, and we had the first class, small town experience of a firetruck, police car, and ambulance in our tiny front yard.  My sister then had to call the Red Cross to get an emergency message to Cecely’s dad.  My family lived seven hours away, and they hit the road immediately to get to the hospital.  All I kept saying was “this isn’t the plan!  This isn’t what the books said would happen.”

Baby Girl
Several hours later and after two failed epidurals, Cecely was born on August 20th, approximately 2 months early.  When Cecely made her entrance into the world, she was not breathing.  Her tiny face was blue.  The nurses quickly took Cecely away from her dad and me.  What seemed like hours (but really was a few minutes) later, Cecely began to cry.  It wasn’t a baby cry, though.  She sounded like a cat or, if you are a Harry Potter fan, like a Mandrake.  Initially, the doctor considered having her airlifted from the base hospital to a big children’s hospital an hour away.  Thankfully, Cecely was finally breathing on her own, and she was taken to a special nursery (this was a very small hospital and there was not a NICU).  It was a few hours before we were really able to see and hold Cecely.  She was a healthy weight of 6 pounds even and was 19 inches long…not bad for a preemie!  But she looked so small.  She was also very sick.  Cecely had an APGAR score of 3, intense jaundice, and severe colic from the start.  During her first year, she spent time on a bilibed (which made her look like a glowworm), had several ER visits, and kept the doctors guessing. 

When Cecely was a toddler, there was a lady who volunteered in the nursery at our church who told me she thought something was wrong with Cecely and encouraged me to have her tested.  I had worked with children my entire life, and I was never an advocate for all of the testing and milestones.  I knew that Cecely was behind on motor skills, but she was very early to talk!  I was (and am) of the mindset that every child develops at their own speed.  I hated the idea of having Cecely tested.  Instead, I went crazy-mama-bear on this lady and refused to think about it anymore.

When Cecely was 4 years old, our family moved back to our hometown.  By this point, Cecely had a little brother, Titus.  We found a preschool program for Cecely at a wonderful school.  Cecely was born independent and very social.  She loved going to school.  Titus and I would hang out in the classroom from time to time.  The teacher of this class was a former special education teacher.  She encouraged me to talk to our pediatrician about being evaluated by a neurologist.  This time, I listened; but, our pediatrician didn’t.  The argument was the age-old battle between the medical world and the education world.  We kept trying pediatricians until we found one who would write the referral to a pediatric neurologist.  Once we visited the neurologist, Cecely was submitted to a CAT Scan, an EEG, and several other tests.  I hated seeing my baby girl be medicated in order to complete the tests.  I was scared of what we may find out.

Dancing Girl
The results of all this testing gave us some overwhelming information.  While I was carrying Cecely, she had a stroke that triggered her premature birth.  The stroke combined with the lack of oxygen at birth caused brain damage.  The brain damage was labeled Cerebral Palsy.  At this point, we began to understand and see the academic delay Cecely was experiencing.  Because of the neurologist and teacher, we were able to get Cecely therapy services.  As Cecely continued in school, her academic delay became more noticeable.  At one school, we were told she had plateaued and would not be making any growth academically.  The answer was to move her to the special education classes.  I worked in those classes and loved those children, but those were not the problems Cecely had.  The reality was the school was not staffed enough to handle what Cecely needed, and it would be easier to lump her in another class, put a label on her, and let that be it.  That is when we pulled Cecely from school and began to homeschool.  Yes, she was behind, but she was able to make great strides academically.

We had some changes in our family, and I needed to go back to work full-time.  We lived in a low-income school district.  This time, there was a great staff, but still no real support for Cecely.  By this time, she was in 4th grade.  The delays she had were noticeable to other students.  She was called “stupid, retarded, idiot” by classmates.  There was one girl who found great satisfaction in lording over Cecely.  She used her size and reading level to degrade others.  She targeted Cecely to the point where Cecely stopped using the bathroom at school and developed some urinary tract problems.  As I dug into this, I learned that the classmate would hold the door on Cecely while in the bathroom so she could not get out.  She would pin her in between the sink and the paper towel dispenser.  She would tell her she couldn’t leave the bathroom until Cecely cleaned up the girl’s mess.  I was furious over this and began to go to the school during my lunch break.  I was now a single mom and did not have the ability to be gone from work.  The principal was great, the teacher was great, but they could do nothing.  Expelling the student put her in danger because of her home life.  They tried to keep the girls separated as much as they could, and I would “volunteer” in the classroom as often as I could.  Here is a testimony to how amazing my little girl is…at the end of that hellacious school year, she hugged her classmate, wished her a good summer and told her she would be praying for her.

As we approached the middle school years, I became afraid for Cecely and school.  Thankfully, she won a lottery spot at a charter school.  This was a completely different experience for us.  This school was exactly what Cecely needed.  They gave her every opportunity academically.  They encouraged her.  They kept her safe.  They loved her well.  This was when we started having new realizations with Cecely’s CP.

For Cecely, CP meant academic delay, fine motor skill trouble, some gross motor skill issues, tremors in her limbs when she was fatigued, slurred speech when she was tired, and her left leg and arm turning inward.  The charter school professionals knew all of these and worked well with us.  Towards the end of 7th grade, Cecely began to start having new symptoms.  She began having pain—sometimes so horrible that she could not move.  Her leg muscles would completely constrict and “lock up”.  Writing had become painful.  We went back to the neurologist who referred her to a genetic specialist.  A year later and thousands of dollars later, after many more tests and doctor visits, the answer was Cecely’s form of CP was atypical.  Generally speaking, the CP symptoms a person is born with are what they have forever; they are static, they don’t get better or worse.  There is no cure.  Cecely’s symptoms did not fit in a specific category, so we have the “atypical” label. 

Now, we have a transfer chair at the ready for Cecely.  There are days when she can walk for 30 minutes with no problem.  Other days, after 30 minutes, the pain is so great, she can hardly talk.  So, we have a chair on hand so she can be wheeled around and still get to experience everything she wants.  The neurologist ordered muscle relaxers to help, but my husband (Cecely’s step-dad) and I are very much against the side effects she had with them.  We have found the swimming, stationary biking, and massages give Cecely temporary relief; the same as the muscle relaxers that also turned her into a She-Hulk.  We are operating on the understanding that more changes in this disorder may come our way.  We are so grateful for the severity of her CP, because we know so many other sweet children and teenagers who are not able to do the things Cecely can.

In 8th grade, Cecely’s teacher assigned the class the task of researching and presenting on a topic that could help make a difference in the world.  Cecely chose awareness for people with disabilities.  She used her own experience and the stories of others to present to her class the importance of treating others kindly.  She was asked to present her project to each class in her school.  From that, Cecely started her own YouTube channel called Cecely’s Corner.  Her mission is to share her stories and the stories of other people while giving hope and encouragement to her viewers.  She truly wants to be a light in a crazy world.

Cecely's Support Team
The diagnosis of Cerebral Palsy rocked my world 15 years ago.  I look at my daughter today, and I am in awe.  She is strong, brave, independent, compassionate, and joy-filled.  I believe she was created exactly how God intended her to be.  She has a purpose on she can fulfill.  She has a heart to love others in a big way.  She has a smile that puts any spotlight to shame.  I look at my son, Titus, and see how watching his sister has shaped him.  He has become one of her best caretakers.  He holds her up when she needs extra support.  He keeps her safe.  He is always on the lookout for her.  Cecely’s sisters are also great advocates and have blossomed into an awesome care team.  CP is a part of our family, but it does not define us!