I’m so happy we had a visit with three families during Born Just Right’s first Google+ hangout. I’m planning to do this often so more of us can meet in person. Along with just meeting, I’m thinking about having some topic-specific meetings so we can ask questions and look to each other for possible answers.

I really feel that meeting each other in person is powerful… and if technology can help us a bit to make it happen, let’s give it a try!

I learned how to explain what it takes to join a G+ hangout and I think it was cool to introduce the technology to a couple of people. I’m happy to help you along the way if you want to join in! In the meantime, be sure to circle Born Just Right on Google+ and it can’t hurt to add me in a circle as well.

I’m all about technology. It’s what has helped me grow as a parents and an advocate. This website has been an important part of my connection to the limb difference and special needs communities. I also happen to be a geek when it comes to social networks. I train people on how to use them. I experiment all the time.

So why not use that to the benefit of the Born Just Right community?

This afternoon you have a chance to meet up with Jordan and I and have a chance to meet other families by joining Born Just Right’s first ever Google+ Hangout. All you need is a webcam, a Google+ account and add Born Just Right into a circle.

Jordan and I will start things up at 4pm ET/1pm PT. We’d love to have you and I’d love to have regular meetings with our families and friends!

Take a look at Jordan’s new arms. It’s pretty cool to check out. I shot a little bit of video with her trying things out in the appointment room on Monday:

Jordan had an amazing adventure while we built her latest arm. There’s so much to write and share and I’ll break down the building process as best I can throughout this week. This building process was long and keeping Jordan occupied was a lot of work.

Over the weekend we had two different chances to meet up with kids who were born just right. On Saturday, one of our friends who we met through this website happened to be at the same football game as we were. Jordan and her friend had SO much fun being goofy and running on the steep hill as the grown ups tried to watch the game. I love how the connection we made from this site brought us together… and strangely enough, also helped us meet some neighbors of ours who live a couple of blocks away. I’m so thankful this site made it possible for us to meet. The girls are two sparks of fire together. It is awesome to watch them together. We met up earlier this Fall and it’s stunning how it feels like our families should have always known each other.

The very next day I took the kids to St. Louis to meet up with three other limb difference families. Their kids are all wonderful. Their parents are fabulous. It’s just incredible how our children have given us an opportunity to know each other. I love the chance to see so many people in person. I love that I group groups like Sammy’s Friends to help make sure we can connect to each other.
 That’s why I’d like to offer an opportunity to bring readers of Born Just Right together. I have had parents from across the country and around the world look for ways to connect to other parents in their area. I would love to help you connect. If you’re willing to share an email address and your location, I’ll try to connect you to other people who fill out this form who are from your area. I’ll leave this form open and send out emails that help you all connect with other families in your state or region. I promise not to sell your contact information – I’ll just use it to connect you to new people. I feel like it’s one little thing I can do to help more families make the amazing connections I’ve been able to do for the last almost six years since Jordan arrived in our world.

_________________________
Did you know we’re holding a fundraiser for Jordan’s birthday? Read more about it here or check out her birthday fundraiser page. Thanks so much for considering a donation for the No Limits Limb Loss Foundation so two kids can attend Camp No Limits. 

I realize I have to break down all kinds of lessons and information I learned during the Amputee Coalition‘s national conference. So I’ll give a quick rundown of our final day taking part in the conference. I had hoped to attend one session on prosthetic hand technology, but trying to get a little girl out the door on time didn’t work for me.

We did get there in time for Jordan to take part in a “First Swim” through the the Orthotic and Prosthetic Assistance Fund and the Challenged Athletes Foundation. Jordan had 50 minutes in the pool with three different, wonderful coaches who encouraged Jordan to swim. She was swimming at the end of last summer, but we lost some skills over the winter while we focused on dance and soccer. (I take full blame.) So it was fun to see Jordan get new encouragement for this year’s swimming season.
After finally convincing Jordan out of the nearby hot tub at the pool, we had lunch with a wonderful family and their five month old son who has a hand difference. They are a caring and fantastic couple and their son is so freaking cute. We also had a chance to introduce them to another Born Just Right friend who lives in the area who came by with her mom and grandma. She’s three and we had a chance to play… There were two very beautiful girls running around the Crown Center. It was fun (and exhausting). I’m so glad we could spend happy time together.

We had a really cool moment right after we had bought the girls ice cream when I noticed Kevin Carroll nearby. He is the prosthetist who played a big role in building a prosthetic for Winter the Dolphin who is the star in an upcoming movie Dolphin Tale. The kids had a chance to talk to him. It was a chat we won’t forget. I really appreciate it. And WOW is Jordan excited about the movie. (It opens September 23rd by the way… We’ll probably have a Winter party that evening in my town!)

Kevin Carroll, Jordan and Jordan's stuffed Winter the Dolphin

After another meeting with a former student, her family and their 18 month old son, Jordan decided she wanted to take part in the closing banquet. We quickly learned my five-year-old did not have the patience or intrest in really being there. When she saw my dinner plate, she declared there was no way she was going to eat the dinner and only ate the roll. So we packed up and headed out. It was a great first conference experience for the two of us and hopefully we’ll be able to return and work with the Amputee Coalition to bring more families together during its events.

We had a great meetup yesterday at the Magic House just outside of St. Louis. We had a small but super fun group of families to play and get to know each other. The Magic House was crowded but we were able to have all kinds of fun. I can’t say enough about how powerful it is to spend time with kids who have similar differences. As a parent, it’s just comforting to see other kids doing awesome. And our kids benefit from getting to know each other. Knowing you aren’t alone is awesome. Miss Jordan is so NOT surprised when she meets a person with a limb difference or sees a picture of another child like herself. She’s lucky.

She’s also so lucky to have such fun little friends. She and her brother enjoyed their time at the Magic House with the group!! Enjoy the pictures. (And those who attended, expect an email with a link to see many, many more!)

We are so lucky to have good friends and have a chance to meet up with more wonderful families with limb different kids. We just had a Missouri meetup where families from our state (and one wonderful family from Illinois) met up at a home in mid-Missouri. It was so cool to spend time with everyone AND the kids put on quite a show as everyone played on a HUGE water slide. We had a blast.

The kids and I are headed to Camp No Limits tomorrow. I’m very excited. I would love to say that I plan to blog every day from the state park where we’re staying, but I’m just not sure how cell reception and web access works out there. So hopefully I’ll be able to share some updates from out there. If you’d like, I’d be happy to try to keep up with things from this twitter account. Worst case… I’ll at least be able to share a few photos from my phone!

There’s nothing like waking up the first morning from being out of town to find Miss Jordan climbing up on the bed to give you a HUGE hug and saying, “I misted you Mommy! I misted you SO much!”

Yeah. That’s stinking cute. Jordan’s language is skyrocketing and many of her words that are in the past tense get and extra -ed or -ted added to them. I love it.

I came home from almost a week out of town to go to a friend’s wedding and speak at a national broadcast journalist conference. I’ve really been out of town a lot. So what did we do?

Went out of town again.

We’re staying in a hotel while I speak at a regional conference for journalists. I asked if I could bring the whole family because I really couldn’t deal with another weekend away from the family. And since we’re going to be out of town, we’re going to have a chance to meet up with a couple of families with sweet baby girls with limb differences. I can’t tell you how excited I am to meet them! Jordan and Cameron seem much more excited about going to the zoo – I’m much more excited about having a chance to meet more families face-to-face. It’s therapeutic. It’s fun. It’s incredible to be able to show time and time again that a limb difference doesn’t slow any of our kids down.

Oh – speaking of not slowing down. That picture is of Jordan this past Thursday when I took her and her brother over to our favorite ice cream place. One of her friends from school was there and Jordan got super goofy. This is her posing with the dog statue outside of the ice cream place. She loves the dog. She loves the ice cream and you can see she’s all over both in the picture. She kills me.