Katy participated in her first day of wheelchair soccer practice today as part of the SPENSA (SPEcial Needs Soccer Association) program in St. Louis. We didn’t even get signed in before wonderful young ladies from the Lindenwood University Women’s Soccer Team decided Katy was who they wanted to work with for the morning.

Hey, we weren’t complaining! Jenni, Maggie and Whitney (along with a number of other players, as well) had Katy kicking, throwing, scoring, hokey pokeying and dancing before the hour was through.

The only struggle Katy had was pushing her wheelchair on the turf. There is just enough give in the surface to bog down on the wheels. Even more annoying to her was the little pieces of fake grass that kept sticking to her fingers from the wet turf as she rolled her wheels. Even with all of that, she still did really well.

There’s two things here, I think, that mean the most to Shel and I: First, Katy is doing so much better working with new people. The little girl that cringed if new people came near her is long gone. Second, Katy just seems to have this extraordinary effect on people that work with her for any amount of time. People just fall in love with our little girl. That means a lot to us.

Maybe the cutest part of the whole morning unfortunately occurred off camera – actually while I was off going to get the car to meet Shel at the wheelchair entrance. Evidently, Katy had the whole Lindenwood team surrounding her saying good bye, giving high fives, blowing kisses and just being her usual cute self.

For the rest of the morning, here’s the video: