December 30th, 2013
The Christmas Party with Kirsten.
Today we had our annual Christmas party for kids with disabilities and their families…we each got to choose a kid to buy a present for and I chose to buy one for a girl named Kirsten. I chose her because on her wish list it said that she liked to record herself and hear it played back to her and I remembered when I was younger I had a toy parrot that would repeat what I said and I loved it! So I wanted to get her that…. but when I went to Toys “R”Us they said they didn’t sell them anymore 😦 But then I found this sweet gem right here, a T-Pain microphone that records what you say.
When I got to meet her today I found out that she didn’t just have a mental disability but she was also blind…and it made me think more about how much this present, and other things like it, must mean to her.
After she opened it I got to help her set it up and use it for the first time and it is really crazy how much she taught me about how she sees the world.
She would get so excited when listening to it play what she said back to her…. she would smile so incredibly big and laugh uncontrollably. This made me think about how it must be to have never seen yourself in the mirror…and that her listening to her own voice played back to her could be the equivalent.
But it was listening to the things that she would say into it that really opened my eyes. She was so funny! The first recording she made was of herself mimicking the sounds of a fire truck with the BEEP BEEP sounds of the horns in-between the long sirens…I loved it!! It sounded EXACTLY like a fire truck, and it made me start to see things from her perspective. She loved repeating commercials word for word and in their EXACT tones. She also loved singing songs, especially Madonna. My favorite was when she sang Brandy-“Have You Ever,” almost all the way through. Her mom said it was the first time she had sang that much of it.
I loved not knowing what was going to say next! I think the coolest thing she did was make the sound of a motorcycle driving soooo perfectly that you could actually picture it…as if you are just ridin along in the car seeing the motorcycle outside your window through its sounds…and then all the sudden she made the sound of the tires skidding to a stop!! She was so incredible and so much fun to be around. I could see her world through the things that she heard and I could feel the beauty and enjoyment that she found in those sounds. 
…I wish I could actually put into words how amazing this experience was to me … It is opportunities like this that help me to continue to change and make my life better and better.
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