Husker Heroes

There are opportunities that special needs parents have in my community that bring me to tears.  I get very emotionally whenever I am faced with a large group of people taking time out to bless kids like my Simon.  It is also super moving looking into the eyes of so many special needs parents who "know" what my life is like day to day.  I gave many a heads up to the other parents trying their best navigate a wheelchair on the AstroTurf, we are a strong breed.

This year we finally made it to an event called husker heroes.  I live in Lincoln Nebraska, home of the cornhuskers....and this event was held at the stadium!!  There were athletes from several different programs lined up all over to allow the kids "compete" in different activities.  Even a non football fan like me felt a bit honored to walk through the players entrance and take my place on the field.  Now, I will say, the event seemed to be a little more fun for the more physically capable children, and Simon kind of hates crowds....so at points I felt like we were there to give Ishmael a good time.  Which as the brother of Simon, he needs to be blessed by these types of events too.  Also, Ishmael is a heck of a lot easier to get a good photo from than Simon is, but I did manage to get a couple.  In typical Simon fashion they aren't your run of the mill, looking at the camera, smiling type pictures but I think they are pretty nice, especially if you try to imagine what he is thinking...

It was super cool, they had all the kids names up in lights....however, they screwed up our registration so Simon's wasn't up there...but the other family in our community was there so there are 3 of their kids' names...in lights!!

if you look close you can see Simon on the MEGATRON!!!  WOO HOOO.  Also pictured with the racket is Asher, who lives in our community.

We ran into a friend of ours who runs track for UNL!

here is Simon wondering what in the world he was sitting under. "simon that is a HUGE Herbie the husker guy".

    

LIke I said I don't really follow the huskers, but this guy was giving autographs, so I thought maybe we should get a picture with him...Simon got a little grabby...I think he was thinking, "hey dude, either give me that bracelet or do something useful with that hand and tap my cheek"

Here is Ishmael with Herbie the husker, Ishmael really couldn't figure out why this guy wanted him to do that with his hands, but like I said, he is good with photos and went ahead and did what he was told.

Ishmael and Jordyn (number 22) are best friends, well somedays they aren't, but most days they are.  Jordyn lives upstairs in our community, he and Ishmael were very happy to be running around together.

Simon was thinking, "what did you let them do to your face?"

I must have taken about 20 photos right here and this was the best one.  Here are my boys with lil red and 3 kids from our community.

There are times when it really pays off for Ishmael to have a mom who will talk to anyone.  I saw some football players standing around so I said, "he why don't you play football with my kid".  So they played catch for a while, it was pretty fun. 

Ishmael caught it!!

Soon we had a crew of players hanging out with us.  It reminded me of the first ever therapy we took Simon to at Madonna, it was the day before thanksgiving, and I guess on that day every year all the football players come to visit the kids.  Ishmael was able to play full on tackle football on the matts with the kicker.  There are some advantages to having a special needs brother.  As a side note, I think that Ishmael has realized one of the best advantages to Simon as a brother is that he doesn't steal his toys.....June is starting to threaten Ishmael's toy playing and I think we are all starting to realize it wasn't that Ishmael was good at sharing it was that Simon didn't force him to...

Ishmael loved the mat, Simon had a good time too, but I couldn't take his photo and had Simon on the mat and our friends had left at this point. 

We found some dancer girls so I asked for a photo, as they snuck up behind Simon he seemed to be thinking, "whoa, what is going on?  that is a lot of sparkle ladies"

"okay ladies I know you just want to be close to me...it's okay...I understand, I am a pretty cool cat"

What a ladies man.