In Which Connor Wins A Medal

Connor was awarded a medal today!

He, along with eleven other children, received the Claire Daily-Stafinbil Young Heroes Award in a ceremony on our local military post today.  This annual award is given out to "children from military families who are physically or mentally challenged and demonstrate extraordinary courage and valor in the face of adversity." 

The kids receiving the medal ranged in age from toddler to late adolescence, and had a wide variety of different physical and developmental special needs.  Each child was called up to the stage, where a brief biography was read about them.  Then they were presented with their medal, a certificate, and a giant bag of gifts.  Connor was the first to be called and was gifted, among other things, with a large stuffed animal husky, which he took to almost immediately and practiced petting during some of the other presentations. 

The presentation was two hours long, and once Connor had gone up we sat in the back, anticipating that Connor would not sit quietly through the rest of the presentations.  While he did remarkably well, Jeremy did have to get up and leave with him after about forty minutes, which I think is a pretty good span of time for a four-year old to sit through a power-point presentation!  At the very end I ran back out and got them, and Connor and I, along with the rest of the kids, went back up on stage one last time.  Then everybody trooped upstairs for cake and punch, where we mingled and Connor graciously accepted a lot of compliments on his yellow and blue striped tie.  He was by far the most formally dressed kid there, in a blue button-down collared shirt, pin-striped slacks, the aforementioned tie, and his brand new bright red Converse sneakers, bought especially for the occasion.  Most of the other kids were in T-shirts.  Oh well; he looked adorable, so it was all good. 

Jer and I declared it to be Connor's "Special Day" and finished the outing with a blueberry smoothie (which Connor enjoyed smearing all over his nice clothing) before heading home.  The little guy crashed and slept a good portion of the afternoon away; I think he was pretty overstimulated from all of the excitement.  We didn't take any pictures of him during the big event because we were on stage with him, but we should be receiving some later and we'll be sure to post them.

So all in all it was a good day for the big boy.  We're pretty proud of him!

~Jess