AZ AMI Garage Sale

We will be holding a garage sale to help earn money to send our honored Mothers to the National Convention.  The date of the garage sale will be May 23-24.  Please donate items and take them to Peggy Glass's home (you can donate them any time).  Her address is 555 N. Date, Mesa, 85201.

2014 Arizona Mother with Special Needs Children

Tessy Hoffman is the strongest woman you will ever know--anyway, that’s what her husband, Rodney says.  He’s not referring to physical strength, but emotional and spiritual strength.  Tessy needs that kind of strength plus the physical strength to deal with family life as she knows it, where everyone but she is in a wheelchair.

Rodney Hoffman has cerebral palsy, which didn't limit his activities until he had a head injury at age 19 that caused paralysis on his right side.  Rodney and Tessy first met at a dance.  Rodney served a mission for the LDS Church.  Tessy also served a mission and learned sign language on her mission, where she worked with the deaf in Colorado and Salt Lake City, Utah.  When she returned home, she and Rodney renewed their contact and were later married. 

Tessy and Rodney started their family and both of their children have cerebral palsy.  They are unable to walk or talk, and are fed through a feeding tube.  They are both far sighted and wear glasses.

 

Doris just celebrated her 22^nd birthday and Arthur is 19.  Tessy communicates with Doris through her eyes.  When given choices to make, Doris will look at the shirt she wants to wear or item she wants to buy at the store.  When she's unhappy she cries or gives dirty looks;  yes, Tessy says that Doris can give you a really dirty look to express her displeasure!  Doris is at an emotional age of 4 or 5 and an intellectual age of 6 or 7.  Arthur is at an even lower age.

Tessy has respite help.  Every week day morning she has an attendant care provider come help get Doris and Arthur ready for school. But she hasn’t had that kind of help all the time.  Tessy has lifted, dressed, bathed, and changed diapers day after day for 22 years through her children’s lives as they have grown and developed through childhood, teenage and now young adult age.  She has lifted them into wheel chairs and driven them to countless doctor’s appointments, hospital visits and nursed them through many illnesses. She has fed them through tubes and struggled with eating issues.   And she has loved them, like all mothers, through every moment of their lives.

How does Tessy deal with discouragement?  She sleeps, reads books, goes shopping or buys groceries. One of her favorite stores is home depot!  She says she likes to look at all the tools.  Tessy used to be a big collector of coupons and loved to file them and see where she could use them.  She said she did it for the fun of the hunt.  Tessy loves reading science fiction, mysteries and true life biographies.  She knits beautiful blankets on looms, and is a master of origami.

Tessy’s advice to other families who are raising disabled children is to cherish the free time you have when your children are in respite care.  She also advises to not be afraid to ask for help from neighbors and family.

Rodney says in addition to Tessy being the strongest woman he knows, she also knows how to roll with the punches that life gives her and is able to function through all the trials that have come her way. 

Yes, Tessy Hoffman is one strong Momma!


********* This post was also featured in the National American Mother's Blog 

Service Project Completed

Arizona American Mothers and friends spent the morning of March 8 tying quilts in honor of our mothers.  We will donate them to a battered women's shelter. The following mothers have quilts made in honor of them:

Betty Ray

Janet Ray

Kathleen Palmer (2 quilts)

Glenna Tingey

Alice Nelson

Janet Lewis

Kathleen Papa

Marilyn Wright

Laurel Ann Strait

Melba Miskin

Jane Wright

Irma Andersen

Margaret James

We also tied baby quilts  and have 10-12 of those ready to donate.

Service Project

Arizona American Mothers is sponsoring an event to make quilts for a battered women's shelter.    This will be held on March 8 between 9am and noon at the LDS church on 611 N Stewart in Mesa.   We will have the quilts frames ready and are asking  people to come help tie the quilts. (We will even teach you how)
You may chose to honor a mother by providing the material for a quilt.  We will sign the quilts "In Honor of  ___{mothers name}___" 
 For more information call Judy Ward  480-969-8779  or Susan Ray- 480-773-1447or email Susan at  suejray@gmail.com.  If you can help for just a few minutes we would love to see you there.   Thank you hope to hear from you soon.

Interview with Aubrey Kleinschmidt - 2014 Honored Mother with Special Needs

Aubrey Kleinschmidt is a wife and mother of four children under the age of 6; Tyler 6 years old, Emma 5, Jacob 2 and Gracie 8 months old.   She is blind.

Aubrey lost the sight in her left eye when she was only 4 days old.   She considered her vision in her right eye to be normal and did not consider herself to be visually impaired. Her sight limitations weren’t really noted until she was working at a dry cleaners. She had trouble matching customer tickets with their dry cleaning items because she kept reversing numbers. The owner of the cleaners suggested she might be dyslexic. She was tested as a senior in high school and found to be visually impaired. She qualified for an Individual Education Plan and went to Berkley, California (an assisted living program) for vocational rehab where she had an opportunity to learn Braille and life skills related to functioning as a blind person. It was assumed that she would lose sight in her right eye.  Aubrey says that she did not take the program very seriously. She met Michael, her future husband, while living in Berkley. 

Aubrey and Michael married and began their family.   Aubrey's pregnancies, however, were stressful for the fragile retina of her right eye. Her vision began to wane after Emma was born. Despite repeated attempts to salvage the sight in her right eye – Aubrey was told, almost three years ago, that she was considered "stone blind" (totally blind).  Shortly after this news, she discovered that she was pregnant with Jacob.

Aubrey attended classes for the blind for over a year. She was taught life skills/mobility skills and Braille, etc. She has special equipment that helps her to read printed text and a very smart phone.

Since Aubrey knew that she would never visually see Jacob’s face she made a special effort to find a doctor that would let her assist with her own delivery. She had the amazing opportunity to help bring Jacob into this world. He has a very special spirit and was a very calm and easy baby to care for.

Despite the loss of her sight, Aubrey and Michael felt there was still a baby waiting to come to their family.  In 2013 she had another special opportunity to help bring Gracie into this world. Gracie has also been an amazingly calm and easy baby to care for.

  Aubrey was born in Salt Lake City, Utah on January 4, 1983.   She was delivered at 28 weeks and weighed 2 lbs, 2 ounces.  The doctor didn’t think she would make it through the night and her mom was told not to even bother to name her! Retinopathy of prematurity (ROM) was the  cause of damage to her eyes.

 

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 Aubrey cooks, cleans, helps with homework and stays on top of the myriad of details sighted moms have to contend with. She is an amazing mom. She doesn’t see with her eyes. She sees with her heart.

Despite the devastating news of losing her sight, Aubrey was not one to wallow in self-pity.  She says her vision loss has improved her marriage and strengthened her testimony of God. She says it has made her a better mother.  When Tyler or Emma say, “Look what I’ve made," Aubrey can’t just glance over and then get back to whatever she was doing.  She stops and goes over to the child and feels with her hands what they have made. When she interacts with her children she is down on the floor playing with them in ways other mothers might skip.

Aubrey is especially grateful for the tremendous support Michael has been for her since she lost her sight. He has been her rock and comfort in difficult times. His flexible work hours have allowed him to drop everything and attend to her needs when necessary. 

Aubrey has a few tricks she and Michael have developed to keep on top of things at home:

- safety pins in all the girls clothing to tell them from the boys.

- puff paint Braille dots on the stove, microwave and washer where the instruction words are.

- always keeps spatula handle aligned with skillet handle so she knows where it's at.

- Tyler's school teacher puts a staple in the top right hand corner of school papers that need parental attention.

- if the TV is on, Aubrey can judge when she is walking in a straight line away from the sound or moving diagonally away from the TV

-Children's shoes are velcroed together and kept on a shelf.

- Aubrey has the chocolate chip cookie recipe memorized!

-Aubrey holds the baby in front of her with her elbow touching the wall as she walks down the hall and the other hand is in front of baby's face (she's bumped the baby into things before)

-Aubrey is constantly feeling her preschooler and baby's faces for smiles, running noses,or  objects in mouth that shouldn't be.

-Aubrey crawls above her baby and explores the floor with her.

-if Aubrey needs to find her younger children she'll call their name and instruct, "say moma" so she can hear where they are.

- Aubrey feeds baby food to her baby by cutting the top off the nipple to make the hole bigger.

-Aubrey is reading Harry Potter to her children with a braille copy of the book. 

 Aubrey understandably has her down days.  Life is hard for a mother with sight, and especially hard without sight.  6 year old Tyler spells out the instructions for his homework, letter by letter so Aubrey can know what he is to do.  By the time he finishes, he and his mother are both mentally exhausted before they even get to the homework.

Aubrey has an amazing outlook and attitude about her life. She states that her problems in life are not due to her blindness.  She understands that her vision loss does not affect her ability to progress in life. She does not use her blindness as an excuse for not being the best person that she can be. 

Congratulations, Aubrey, on being honored as Az 2014 Mother with Special Needs!

Service Project

Arizona American Mothers is sponsoring an event to make quilts for a battered women's shelter.    This will be held on March 8 between 9am and noon at the LDS church on 611 N Stewart in Mesa.   We will have the quilts frames ready and are asking  people to come help tie the quilts. (We will even teach you how.)

You may chose to honor a mother by providing the material for a quilt.  We will sign the quilts "In Honor of  ___{mothers name}___" 

 For more information call Judy Ward  480-969-8779  or Susan Ray- 480-773-1447or email Susan at  suejray@gmail.com.  If you can help for just a few minutes we would love to see you there.  

2014 Arizona Honored Mothers!

January 28 was our Gala announcing the new Mother of the Year, Young Mother of the Year and other honored mothers.

We are happy to present:

Lila Shoemaker as our 2014 AZ Mother of the Year  

Jill Geigle as our 2014 AZ Young Mother of the Year.

Lila Shoemaker, Jill Geigle

Other honored mothers are:

 Lori Roberts, 2014 AZ Mother of Achievement 

Leah Davis and Wendy Wise as

 2014 AZ Merit Mothers

 

Wendy Wise, Leah Davis, Lori Roberts

We also honored:  

Tessy Hoffman as 2014 AZ Mother of Children with Special Needs

 Aubrey Kleinschmidt as 2014 AZ Mother with Special Needs

Tessy Hoffman, Aubrey Kleinschmidt

We will be posting interviews with all these wonderful mothers in the near future.  Watch for them!

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At the business meeting before the Gala, we elected some new mothers to serve on the board.  They will serve for two years  They are:

Susan Ray  President

Judy Ward  1st Vice President

Tamara Passey  2nd Vice President

Melody Wagner   Secretary

Genevra Bond, Caroline Ray, Melba Miskin and Leola Leavitt to serve on the nominating Committee.

For your information:  Karen Miskin is continuing to serve as the 3rd Vice President and Peggy Glass continues as our Treasurer.