Let Them Stare!

Underneath the Scars: Let Them Stare! by Meg Zucker: "Those stares!  No matter how many years I’ve endured the uninvited attention, and even learned to brush it off, I still sometimes find myself surprised at how unabashedly some people will gape at me.   And while I’d like to think it’s because I’m so gorgeous, I don’t kid myself.   I know they often fixate on me because I look quite different from the norm.  That’s to be expected.  But what I didn’t expect was that along the way, I might begin to inspire others to be less self-conscious."

Doin' Things One-Handed

As if Ryan Haack wasn't cool enough already, now he has this awesome caricature of himself for his website, Living One Handed. Personally, I think its pretty awesome!

Come to think of it...his whole website is pretty awesome. If you haven't checked it out, you definitely should!

I am loving Ryan's "how-to" videos in which he shows himself doing simple, every day tasks one-handed. (Because that's how you do things when you have one hand. *wink*)

He covers the typical parental worries of how a one-handed child will tie their shoes or zip their coat, as well as the more important skills like how to make snowballs and shuffle cards. And my personal favourite - How to Hold Twins One-Handed. I look forward to more of these helpful and humorous How-To videos. Thanks so much for sharing Ryan. As I may have mentioned, you are AWESOME.

How to Tie Shoes One-Handed

How to Zip a Coat One-Handed

How to Put Toothpaste on a Toothbrush One-Handed

How to Wash Your Hands One-Handed

How to Make a Snowball One-Handed

How to Shovel and Use a Snow Blower One-Handed

How to Peel Fruit One-Handed

How to Shuffle Cards One-Handed

How to Wrap a Present One-Handed

How to Do "Where Is Thumbkin?" One-Handed"

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How To Survive Being Stared At

Most of the member's of the Sammy's Friends group are parents of children with limb differences. But the great thing is, that there are also members who are adults with limb differences themselves. I always love hearing things from their perspectives.

Like Ryan Haack, a 33-year old dad who just happens to have one hand. Check out his blog: Ryan Haack Does Stuff: And he does it all one-handed.

I love his recent entry, "How to Survive Being Stared At".

I love this part. Its SO TRUE!

"Kids don’t know any better. I’m not saying kids aren’t smart or anything, I’m just saying they’ve (probably) never seen somebody like me and their brains are still in that stage where they’re like, “HOLY CRAP. THAT DUDE IS MISSING HIS ARM. I MUST KNOW WHY. I WILL ASK HIM IMMEDIATELY.” "

At the CHAMPS seminars, they mention the same kind of idea when talking about how to handle staring and questions. Brian likes to tell the kids to think of themselves as a beautiful, rare butterfly that no one has ever seen before. Of course they want to look at you and ask questions! Just as you would, if you saw a space ship for the first time or a pink giraffe with polka-dots. If you've never seen one before, wouldn't you find yourself staring in curiosity and wanting to find out more about it because its SO COOL!? :)

Born Just Right

When I was pregnant with Gavin, I came across Jordan's blog, "Born Just Right." I just wanted to share this with you because she is really an extraordinary little girl and her blog inspired me to start my own for Gavin.

bornjustright.com

During my pregnancy, I went through a lot of different emotions when we learned about Gavin's arm and it really helped me a lot to read about Jordan's adventures, see her pictures (She is SOOO adorable!!!) and videos of her in action.

I especially love THIS recent post about how she figured out how to use a knife & fork on her own!

Gavin is really into pretending to cook in his play kitchen. He recently became very interested in using the little plastic utensils to "cut" the plastic food. He concentrates very intently while he rests one of them on the end of his little arm and then holds the other in his right hand and scrapes it back & forth over the food.



They really do figure everything out.