While perusing adoption Facebook groups, I regularly come across a particular type of post. “My husband and I are starting the adoption process, we are looking for a young, minor needs girl ages 0-3. What are some minor needs that you would recommend that don’t require surgery or life long care.” Inevitably someone will ALWAYS… [Read More]
Praise: Milton the Mealtime Companion Helps Kids Eat Healthy
There isn’t a parent in the world that hasn’t struggled with trying to get their children to try (and eat) a variety of foods. Vegetables, starches, fruits, meats, dairy. You name it, every tyke I know has gone through at least one food aversion period. With my last two kids (Lulu and Ezra), I spent… [Read More]
Deafness: Where are the 90%?
Shortly after Nyle Demarco won the coveted mirror ball a NY Times post entitled Parents of Deaf Children, Stuck in the Middle of an Argument began making the rounds on Facebook. There was a beautiful picture of Nyle DiMarco and Peta as click bait for the reader but it wasn’t an article applauding Nyle’s accomplishment, no, it was another article bemoaning… [Read More]
The Day a Video of My Son Went Viral
In May I will have been blogging for seven years and even though I have had a few articles go viral, I have not experienced anything like I did this past week when a video of my son Ezra went viral. A few weeks ago I posted a cute little video of my son giggling… [Read More]
#WhyISign Campaign
Today I am excited to share with you a very important campaign called #WhyISign. This video campaign was created by Stacy Abrams in order to encourage and support the families of Deaf children to consider ASL an important part of their deaf child’s identity. The campaign has been going on for a few months now but… [Read More]
Deaf Child Waiting: Isla with Heartsent Adoptions
Sunshine Praises is not an official advocate for any agency. My goal is to help all deaf and hard of hearing waiting children find their forever families. This little sweetie showed up in my newsfeed today and I just had to share her. Isla is another deaf Chinese waiting child. She is absolutely adorable. She does have several… [Read More]
Early Literacy in ASL (Retelling a Story)
Recently Ezra has been blooming in his language acquisition. He is on target with hearing peers for typical developing children. He regularly uses two word sentences and has mastered the “question” signs, WHAT, WHERE and WHO. We often see sentences like: Where paci? Who (index)? What (index)? *normally referring to a sound or something he… [Read More]
Parenting Survey – Church Attendance & Special Needs Children
Disclaimer: I am using the term “special needs” to include children with a range of medical, physical and sensory disabilities. While I prefer to use positive and affirming choices, I believe “special needs” best defines the intentions of the survey. Have you ever looked around your church and realized that there are no families with special… [Read More]
Ughh, I Hate the Word “Thrive” Used to Describe Deaf Children
In my new identity as a parent of a “special needs” child, I am continuously annoyed by parents regular use of the word “thrive” when discussing their children. It happened the other day when I dared to venture out into a cochlear implant discussion. The parent that was 100% against the use of sign language lambasted… [Read More]
Deaf Child Advocacy (China): Yi with CCAI
**This child has been matched with her forever family.** This is it friends. My very first advocacy post. I should tell you right now that I have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA what I am doing. I feel a little crazy, I mean, how can you advocate for adoption when you haven’t even adopted yet. However, I… [Read More]