Weekly Challenge #300

HOLY COW!! OH MY GOODNESS!! CAN YOU EVEN BELIEVE IT!!

Three Hundred weeks ago i started this little community here on the world wide web. 

Three Hundred weeks ago. 

Three Hundred weeks ago i couldn't have guessed the journey the blog would take and where it would take me, both literally and figuratively.  

Three Hundred weeks ago i didn't know the amount of connections that would be made. 

Three Hundred weeks ago i couldn't have imagined the wealth of friendship i have found.  

Three Hundred weeks ago i thought i'd just try my hand at this for challenge blog few months and see how it goes. 

Three Hundred weeks ago i was a totally different person who has grown in incredible ways and has changed in ways i couldn't have foreseen. 

I'm going to just jump right into here because i think this week's challenge is really fitting for this occasion.
If you've been following my blog and my facebook page for some time, you may have guessed that this challenge would be coming.  This Tuesday, January 24th, is Moebius Syndrome Awareness Day.

In the beginning - i came to zentangle for the art.  I was drawn to it because it was familiar.  Then Artoo was born and everything about his birth and his hospital stay and his eventual homecoming was. So. Hard......and i clung to zentangle as my life line in those first months - and eventually it led me here because i knew that i NEEDED to keep a zentangle practice in my life.  I needed to make it a priority because, honestly - this challenge blog? Well.  It saved me back then.  It gave me something i had to do for myself at least once a week, and in the beginning that was all i could manage.  It was all i could do some Sunday nights to sit down and write and create a tile... and a lot of those challenges in the early days i was totally living by the old adage: Fake it 'till you make it.  

And it helped.  Writing this blog for the past six years has sometimes been a challenge, sometimes a chore, but i keep coming back to it because it helped me pull myself out of my own real life challenges, even if it was just for Sunday night.

Weekly Challenge #300: "Moebius Syndrome Awareness Day"

Artoo, the great

My son Artoo has Moebius Syndrome and every year I post this challenge about Moebius Syndrome Awareness Day.  I do this because i love my son so very much.  He is the brightest, the silliest, the sweetest most sensitive and emotionally mature not to mention adorable kid with buckets of charisma and an astounding memory for details and facts.  The kid is so freaking charming.

Grade 1 is awesome

Moebius Syndrome is HELLA rare.

being silly is fun!

Like literally 1-20 in a million rare.  I'm not making that up.

I think he makes this look work

It is a nerve disorder that is present at birth.  It's the cranial nerves, to be specific, that are either underdeveloped, broken or missing causing facial paralysis.  People who have moebius syndrome are on varying degrees of the Moebius spectrum.  For Artoo he has zero movement in his eyebrows, and this eyes don't move from side to side.  Those nerves are missing.

cutest paleontologist ever

Artoo has difficulty with speech because there is some paralysis in and around his mouth - and it's kind of like speaking to someone with an interesting accent.  After a while you just learn how to speak Artoo.

Preemies are magic

When he was born the doctors told me that i would never see him smile.

can i get a hell yeah?

Doctors don't always know everything.

People with Moebius Syndrome can have low muscle tone and can be uncoordinated or have trouble with balance, like Artoo does. And/or they can be born with some missing limbs or underdeveloped or webbed digits, and can also have other disorders, which Artoo does not.

budding artist - oh, my heart

I tell you these things and i share his pictures with you because it breaks my heart that people who have never met him make assumptions about him, based on his physical appearance.  It causes me physical pain when people talk over him and ask me "So, what's wrong with him anyway?" as if he wasn't completely fully aware that they are talking about him.  SPOILER: He is.

he deserves a million trophies

I kills me that he might ever be made to feel that he is less than because a few of his nerves don't work, like - f'real, that's a shitty reason to feel like you don't or can't belong.  It would be just as unfair if the world decided that everyone with green eyes was weird or that their eyes looked funny and no one wanted to be your friend or talk to you....

his future album cover

Artoo wants nothing more than to grow up and be in a comedy band like his current idol, Weird Al Yankovic.  He loves the colour green.  He recently discovered cinnamon buns (at christmas) and thinks they are the best flippin' thing since sliced bread.  He likes to watch Spongebob Squarepants and believes that fart jokes are the height of comedic sophistication.  He can spell paleontologist without breaking a sweat and he can read backwards!

We love Artoo

He can tell you, to the second, how long his favourite songs are and which album it's from and when that album was released.  He has an excellent singing voice and loves dancing.  He likes to write lists and he likes to write fiction stories about Weird Al and his school friends going on field trips to the zoo.  Sometimes the way he talks other grownups kills me because he's so matter of fact like he's like a tiny grownup himself.

ice cream sundaes are the best

I make Moebius Syndrome Awareness Day the weekly challenge each year because i am in the unique position where, for some reason, thousands of people care what i have to say sometimes.

fair rides for the win!

 Also it's in the hopes that i may reach just one more person; someone new, someone who had never heard of Moebius Syndrome so that when some day in the future they are fortunate enough to meet one of these amazing people they will remember that one blog post they read that one time, and they might remember that underneath the face they're unfamiliar with is a person who is warm and caring and funny and would really really really - more than anything - just wanted to be treated as normal.

 I make it the challenge so i can tell you that it's NOT a disease.
It's disorder.  It's not contagious.

well, unless it's goofy camping faces... THOSE are fully contagious

 This isn't something that "happened to" our family.  Our lives are totally different than i would have ever imagined three hundred and some weeks ago.  But were it not for Artoo none of this would have happened.  We are discovering, as we go, that we are immensely blessed in so many ways.  Ways we are aware of, and ways that i'm sure will make themselves known in the fullness of time. (Wooo!! that was a five dollar phrase! The fullness of tiiiiime)

But simplified; Because Artoo was born i really and truly embraced tangling.  Because i needed to keep tangling i started this blog.  Through this blog i have met (online AND in real life) the most supportive, caring, generous, giving and amazing souls who would never have otherwise come into my life!   

To raise awareness for this disorder is this week's Challenge. Use the Moebius Syndrome Foundation's logo as your string, or create a moebius strip out of paper and tangle that... or some other awesome creative thing that i haven't thought of.

Here's two versions of the logo for you to work with.  You can print them or trace them or draw your own.

For those of you who remember this challenge from last year, please don't submit your tile from last year if you can.  I'm going to send the link to the Challenge to the folks on my Moebius Syndrome support group on facebook, i'd love for them to see all your amazing artwork so that each and every one of them will know that they are not alone and that we are aware!!

If you are going to post your piece, also, to Instagram (@iamthediva), Twitter, or Facebook - please consider using the hashtags: #moebiusawareness #moebiuspurple so that the Moebius community will see them there as well.  

For those of you who remember this challenge from last year, please don't submit your tile from last year.  I'm going to send the link to the Challenge to the folks on my Moebius Syndrome support group on facebook, i'd love for them to see all your amazing artwork so that each and every one of them will know that they are not alone and that we are aware!!

also - the colour for MSAD is Purple, so if you want to incorporate purple into your tile, feel free.  Please consider wearing purple on Sunday, in support of our big man Artoo - The first baby to attend a CZT Conference in utero and resident CasaDiva cutie pants!!! :D.

If you do, and you'd like to send me a photo, you can send it to lauraharmz (at) gmail (dot) com, or post it to the Challenge Facebook Page with hashtag #moebiusawareness 

Thank you everyone for being so supportive of our family!! it means so much to us.

have a great week!

And if you're on the Zentangle Mosaic App or Instagram - i'm @iamthediva - come on by and follow me, and i'm going to be using hashtags on the app for each of my weekly challenges. So if you're game - use the hashtag #DC300(Diva Challenge #300) for your tile this week! You can also search in the app for people's contributions to the challenge by clicking on the hashtag from inside the app, or using the search function. 

If you have a blog or host your images on line (like on Flickr or Picassa or Pinterest), add the site-specific URL where your tile is posted to the linkey machine below! Don't forget to link back here so that others can join in the fun! (if you don't know how to find this, you can see my half assed tutorial here) Also, please feel free to come back often and visit the links of those people on the linkey machine - don't forget to leave a comment or feedback, everyone loves feedback. ;) 

If you love the challenge as much as i do, please consider leaving a tip (tip jar in the side bar).  I write this blog for free and have no plans to make it a paid for service in the future. 

 Buy me a cup of coffee, or a new Micron pen!! Click the tip jar on the side for a monthly tip, but if you just wanna throw a few bucks my way THIS LINK

will give you a one time option.    A very big thank you to those who have kept me in hot cups of joe. ;)