We welcome those who raise children with special needs and therefor interested in our playground project because they also want to take part in the noisy life of playgrounds. Hello to those who are just parents visiting playgrounds and would like their children to see and learn to accept different types of people.We welcome the ones interested due to their profession and the ones who are just open to our work for no special reason, who simply believe in all children's basic right to play on a seesaw.We would also like to welcome our friends and our future friends, and all of you who are supporting us in realizing our big dream: suitable playgrounds for children with all kind of abilities.On this blog you can read about our story, our experience so far, and our thoughts about the world, playgrounds and social integration - all this from the point of view of special kids' parents.Join us, have fun or think and discuss about what you read here. Support us if you can and donate to our crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo. Please share our story to help us find our supporters so that our dream can come true!

2015. május 14., csütörtök

MAGIKME ON INDIEGOGO

CLICK HERE TO HAVE A LOOK AT OUR CAMPAIGN ON INDEGOGO

On the 16th day of our campaign WE HAVE REACHED OUR ORIGINAL GOAL and we have not finished yet! Thank you all! Thank you for the financial and non-financial contribution, for the ideas, brainstorming, sharing our story, newspaper or online articles, media contacts and for the encouragement!
As the campaign lasts another 17 days on Indiegogo we have the opportunity to set another goal together with the next phase of the project.
Our next funding goal is to build the prototype of the Dune, a complex playground equipment. It has a small climbing wall, an elevated sand pitch and a play desk with small toys. Those capable to can climb up on the device while others can sit or lay on the ergonomic seats with safety bars and enjoy playing with the sand or on the play desk. Thus children with all abilities can again play together here.

2015. május 10., vasárnap

WHEN I BECAME A MOTHER

When my son Janos was born at 1 pound and 6 ounces, the world turned upside down, and up and down again and again, for a year and a half that we spent in hospitals, from bad news to worse, from one surgery to the next. Our first mother’s day found us next to the incubator, and was the very first time I could hold my six weeks old baby in my arms.
We had a tough start but by the time we got home we were completely new people with a strong resolution not to care what anyone was saying but to love this little boy and make every effort to make him happy. I did not ask for a healthy boy; I asked for a happy one. Not that I did not want him healthy but when I was told that according to the MRI scan, he would not be able to do anything, the only thing I could think of was ’right, but he still can be happy.’
And this has been my mission ever since, the motto of my motherhood.
Right after leaving the hospital we started to feel more normal even though we were anything but normal. We had a little boy with severe health problems: a bunch of tubes and lines coming out of his body; we had a complete ICU in our bag and spent our days with different therapies. And yet, we were happy because finally we were at home with our son. We got used to our hospitalized reality.
We had a strict timetable on the wall because we thought that finally we had the opportunity to teach and train him so we wanted to spend every waking minute doing that. Meanwhile I gave birth to a healthy little boy who then really gave us back something that we lost two and a half years before. But still I couldn’t let the therapies and the strict schedule go.
Luckily one of the therapies was Doman’s reading method so after a year of strict therapy Janos communicated on an facilitated communication (FC) board. Our son did that who was claimed mentally, physically and visually disabled! My firtst thought was that I had gone crazy for sure, although that would have made sense after all the things I had been through. For a while I had the suspicion that I was talking with myself but as time passed I just knew it was him and the things he told me changed me and our lifestyle too.
His first project was to put an end to this stupid timetable-bound life so that his real childhood could finally begin. He kept on spelling me: ’Mummy has to calm down and take things easy’. I was like: ’But how my little son? How?’ And he would say: ’Let me teach you, Mummy’.
This is when it all started. By that time his baby brother had slowly grew into a little boy who really knew how to play and how to get what he wanted. (Do I need to tell you what a miracle this seemed like to us?) That helped a lot to understand what a child normally does.
Ever since, I’ve been trying to do my best to let Janos be a child and participate in every game. You can see that ordinary children always want to play and they nudge you until you go and play with them. Janos is just another child who wants to participate. It would be much easier to leave him in his wheelchair where he is calm and quiet. But this would be unfair to Janos that just because he cannot nudge me he cannot play either. So I always keep that in mind.
His second project on his FC board was to arrange for another family member so he let me know that he wanted a new baby and pushed us until we agreed. So now they are three, two boys and a girl. Sweet little crew. Now there are two of them who run around and one who follows them in his pushchair or in my arms. I do it not only because of my conscience. I cannot describe you his face and the thrilled sounds he lets out when I grab him along to follow his siblings. That is happiness, and that is what I wished and promised him when he was lying in the bed among those beeping machines.
I want all three of them to be happy and have a normal childhood with parties and trips to the playground. But it is not easy at all in everyday life. Here in Hungary we do not have inclusive playgrounds. So with few friends with the same issues we decided to build one. This is how our MagikMe Project began.