Three Dreams in One day

Have you ever fulfilled three dreams in one day? Perhaps yes, if you break down a big dream into its components. In my case, I didn't have to do that because they were truly three dreams, the first two were what a mother have always dreamed of.

Usually, a common dream among mothers of a female toddler is for her child to become a “flower girl” in a wedding. When that toddler becomes an adult, a mother would dream for her grown-up child to be a bride someday. My eldest daughter had been a flower girl a number of times and then a bridesmaid also, and my dream for her to be a bride came true.

My special child is blind and has cerebral palsy so I have totally different big dreams for her: to be seizure free and be able to walk and talk. Until it came across my mind that she can still be a “flower girl”, but only during her older sister's wedding though that wouldn't be a requirement for my older daughter. When I learned my daughter and her groom-to-be chose not to include children to march during their wedding, I found that unusual but also unique. And then it dawned on me that it could be an opportunity for my special child to be a flower girl since she couldn't march but could ride her big stroller that would be pushed by an adult. I made her stroller look like a nice carriage decorated with some flowers, and my dream for her came true.

The third dream was a very simple one, for me to wear a dress for goddesses someday. When I was looking for a gown for a bride's mother, I saw some photos of gowns for bridesmaids called “Venus” style gowns, so I requested for a similar design. The finished product turned out to be my dream gown!

The Schedule Board

My special child was classified under the "vocational" class at Resources for the Blind (RBI), since it was the first time we enrolled her in a school for the disabled, specifically for visually impaired children.

Her first day of classes was beyond my expectation because of the "mature" approach to training blind children. What I meant by that was I think the children were immediately introduced to a mature and responsible lifestyle by immediately introducing the "schedule board" and follow the scheduled activities.

In my mind, I was saying if only we were taught the same way when we started in school, dreaming big would be easier as we grow up because of the discipline in time we got used to.

I made another version of the schedule board that my special child can follow at home. It has dividers to separate one task from another and task symbols like spoons for snack time, cassette tape for music time, and I used as symbol for massage or leisure time the actual comb gadget I use on my special child. In school, the schedule usually starts with "circle time" with other children, followed in any order by art time, snack time, leisure time, music time, and ended with a quiet time then bye-bye time. When one task is finished, we sing the "finished" song and ask the child to put the symbol in a "finished tray" at the right of the board.

At the start of the class, the child would already know the schedule since she has to review the whole schedule board by touching the symbols in the right order they will be performed. Isn't that awesome?