I contacted our local Make A Wish organization to see if Ronnie would qualify for a wish. He does, and the Make A Wish folks are starting to process all the paperwork. I'm so excited for Ronnie, but I'm also running into a wall. I can't seem to make him understand that wishes can be big!
I guess coming from a past life of not having much - living in a very disruptive home with his mother - and then in several foster homes - wishes don't come easily for him. He's probably wished for things in the past and those wishes never came true.
So now if I ask what he would wish for, he would probably say chicken nuggets.
I've shown him the website for Disney World. I've talked to him about other trips. We've reviewed the wishes that other children have made. But he just doesn't seem to grasp the idea. I have some ideas about things he would really like - being a superhero for a day, being a character in a comic book or a cartoon, having a go-kart track in the backyard - but he just looks at me like I am crazy.
I've shared these concerns with the Make A Wish staff, and they assure me that they have folks that will talk to Ronnie and help him figure out what his wish is. So I'm going to stop fretting about it, and just let them do their job.
But I wonder, have others of you faced a similar situation, and if so, what did you do to help your child dream and wish for something special?
3 comments:
We can all think of things we imagine our child would 'wish for'. One day I asked my then 6 year old what she would wish for - if she could have anything she wanted.
She replied: "I wish I could take my dog for a walk." (Now I know she wanted to WALK, rather than ride in a wheelchair). So I said, come on, let's go. We wrapped a rug around her in the wheelchair (it was evening), got the dog and the lead, and off we went. She really, really enjoyed our walk, and when we were partway home she said: "See, I wished it, and my wishes came true!" I wish all my wishes for her could come true, too.
A friend of mine I met in college said she got a wish when she was 16. She got a laptop. Apparently that's a common thing for teens...
Best wishes!
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