Bradley's Make-A-Wish!

Day 21: 31 for 21 Bog Challenge for Down Syndrome Awareness

Sometimes the best Blessings come with the most difficulties!  And why you are so extremely Blessed, it is not without a fair amount of work on your part to make it happen.  Having Bradley is the greatest Blessing; and yet, not for the faint of heart.  He comes with a lot of work, and often it all happens at once and then a small amount of reprieve and then a bunch more, but that’s just Bradley.  And I’m not saying that some of his stuff doesn’t scare the living daylights out of me; but I am saying, that I take whatever comes to keep him. 

We were quite surprised when we were offered a Wish for Bradley from Make-A-Wish.  In fact, I almost passed out at the onset and immediately argued that he wasn’t terminal that he didn’t qualify.  Apparently, I had that all wrong.  It’s not just for kids that are terminal, it’s for kids who are compromised, who are going through a lot medically and especially in his case, are going to be going through a lot more before it’s all said and done.  So I guess he’s qualified.  So it looks like he’s getting a Wish.  So exciting!!!

The next part was really hard, deciding on his Wish.  Sure Disney is super fun, but going to Disney is hard to plan for us, we try to pick a day when he is healthy enough to go and we go once a year when the Regional Center offers the discounted tickets.  The last two years, it has been a near thing that we made it.  So for them to put a lot of effort into it and then have to delay because he’s either sick or having that surgery we don’t want him to have that he will eventually have to have… well, it’s tough.  My fear was to delay because of his surgery and then him not be well enough to go again.  I’m sure they have contingencies for these kinds of things, but I didn’t want to put anybody out.  And to be honest, Bradley enjoys Disney, but I don’t know that he remembers too much about.  He enjoys being there, but he still is afraid of the characters…so, well… you get the idea. 

They emphasized that the Wish should be something he would want.  So No, we didn’t say he wanted to meet the World Series winning Kansas City Royals…that would be for Sydney and me.  Wink, wink…  haha..  Nope, we sat down and thought about what would make him the most happy.  We came up with something that would make him ecstatic and would be something he would remember and enjoy for a very long time! 

I preface by saying this: we just moved into our house in May of this year.  It was a rental for three years and though she has nice bones, our house needs some work…probably more than we anticipated when we decided to buy.  Things like a backyard sprinkler system that was turned off at the start of escrow killed the grass…which is ok; in that, we were going to have to redo it all anyway because the system was in the living room…  Um, weird.  And we had to remove this 60 foot Palm Tree or as I referred to it “Potential Horrifying Blazing Torch” that stood at the entrance to our house.  And we cleared out the overgrown and kind of scary backyard of dead trees and poisonous plants that were taking over the place.  Inside we have been painting and painting, and with a new wall up and electricity finished we’ve been painting Sydney’s new room.  So we haven’t had much time in our backyard to make it safe for Bradley or actually any fun yet. 

That’s about to change.  We are about to be getting super busy in the backyard and doing some back breaking work in order to get ready for some miracle workers to come in and grant Bradley’s Wish. 

As I tell you what his Wish will be – I realize we should have chosen Disney or Great Wolf Lodge as it would have been so much easier on us!  HAHA…  But no, we chose what would make Bradley the happiest.  We requested some Backyard help to create a place for Bradley to play so that when he is healthy he can play every day.  When he’s sick, it will be there when he is healthy enough to go out and play again.  There is no worry about him not remembering his Wish, he will have it to see every day and his sisters’ can play and climb with him on what sounds like will be a very cool play structure. 

Now we just have to get this patio cover (that we planned to take down at some point and replace – termite issue) down and start busting up some of this older, uneven, and unsafe for Bradley (and really all of us) concrete to make room for the magic to happen.  Although we have some open space at the other side near our bedroom, we have two other kiddos, and next summer we hope to put up a stand up pool or a large spa, something that all the kids will enjoy playing and cooling off in when it gets so very hot again.  Remember, this is not a house with AC.  The house electrical panel is on the side with the patio and such….so we have to clear that space out so that they have room to work and we have room to plan something for the girls especially and for Bradley to enjoy too. 

We were told it can take quite a while to get these things moving, so we thought we had more time…but they are ready to do more measurements and get things moving towards setup…YIKES!  Remember, Blessings sometimes are not for the faint of heart!  It would take us years to try to give something like this to Bradley, so we see how amazing this is, we just have to work really hard to make sure it has the place to happen for him because when kindness comes your way: it’s on the time of the magic makers not on our timeline.   So, we’ll be back at it tomorrow, but I’ll be trying to pace us to get the work done but not let it get too much for Dad.  But the girls and Bradley will be helping, which makes some of the work slower, and that’s okay because watching Bradley carry bricks back to where I just picked them up from is really kind of cute; albeit tiring.  He did start to get the idea today and began taking them from me and handing them to Madison to go stack, so I foresee great help from him on this project, and he might just sleep through the night for the next few nights…this is hard work!  J 

So Bradley is going to get a Wish, and if we can help it, Dad and I are going to try to make sure the girls know that they are something special too.  Having three happy kids will be so worth the extra work!  Cross your fingers we can get it all done in time!! 

Happy Friday night Folks!  If I can still pick my arms up tomorrow and make my fingers work, I will be back at it tomorrow night with a progress report!