Childhood Apraxia Walk

We are gearing up to register for the Childhood Apraxia walk this year in Dallas, Texas.  Alex is always asking to stay in a motel.  We have talked about going down and spending the night in a motel and making a weekend of it.  We will all receive this year's themed shirts and Alex, our little guest of honor, will receive a special gift.

While this is all exciting in and of itself, there is a bigger picture here.  Childhood Apraxia is still very new.  They are learning more and more about it each and every day.  Alex has both Apraxia of Speech and Apraxia of Limb.  Basically, Alex knows what he wants to say and do, but his brain has difficulty coordinating the muscle movements needed to form words or perform a task.

Oftentimes Alex feels trapped between two worlds.  He requires therapies and is pulled out of class quite often for help with speech, occupational therapy, math, reading and other skills/subjects. Alex has told me on more than one occasion that he feels like he doesn't belong with the "normal" kids and he doesn't belong with the special needs kids.  Logan comes home, pulls out his homework, and does it with no help in about 10 minutes.  This frustrates Alex.  Alex requires a lot of help with homework and some nights it takes us close to an hour to help him finish his homework, work on his speech practices, and his reading assignments.  He does get overwhelmed and he does get frustrated at times--who wouldn't in his position?  He is such an awesome kid, though.  Most days he shrugs his shoulders as if to say, "It is what it is, no use getting upset about it.  This is me!"

The bigger picture in attending this year's Childhood Apraxia walk is not only to help raise money for research of Apraxia, but it will also help my sweet Alex see that there are other children out there just like him.  Some days I know he feels like he is the only one, but this will help him see that he isn't.  He can meet other children with Apraxia.  We can meet families with children who have Apraxia.  I think this is going to be a really good thing, and if we can stretch it out into a fun weekend, well, I know Alex would love that! ;)