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6/28/2025 0 Comments My DadI am overly excited ‘cause my Dad is here today. He lives in Florida so I don’t get to see him often. I want him to see me spell so he learns how smart I am. I know that I look cognitively disabled on the outside and that my mouth says stupid things. I wanted my Dad to see the real Vinny. The real Vinny is me, and I am intelligent and funny. I hope that my Dad understands now. 
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5/9/2025 0 Comments Tipping PointThe world that forces us to be seen as cognitively disabled is on its way out. As more and more nonspeakers learn to type to communicate, there will be more pushback against the status quo. I believe that we are nearing the critical tipping point. Certainly the totally awesome world of typing needs to take over the universe. People who doubt our abilities are wrong. I’ll laugh in their faces some day.  The gala was beyond magical. Definitely I cannot say enough good things about it. My Mom made the room look like a fairy land. The grown ups got super dressed up. Mom looked like a princess; Judy looked like a princess too. That made it feel even more like a fairy tale. I loved everything about it. But the best part is always the presentation. If you are a speaker, you probably can’t understand how much that presentation means to us. When your photo comes up, you feel like you are totally floating on air. You feel so proud of yourself, which we never get to feel. It actually is the best night of the year. I already can’t wait until next year.  3/27/2025 1 Comment The Best Day EverOn Saturday I got to see a miracle. My hero, Alex, stood as a testament of what we can do if given the chance. Certainly I am really not Jewish, but it didn’t matter. At that bar mitzvah service, all we nonspeakers felt the same - that God was there. Energy can feel good or bad. Judy has the most rosy light energy, but the energy in that synagogue was beyond description. The energy in that room was so beautiful it almost hurt. I’d be willing to go to synagogue every week to feel that. I hate to not be Jewish right now. That synagogue is like the best place on earth outside of Mouth to Hand.  1/17/2025 0 Comments FameHollywood, here I come. It turns out I am famous. A woman sitting next to my Mom at the gym asked if I was the Vinny whose blog she reads. So I am a celebrity! Judy wants to know how it feels to be famous. It feels great. But…show me the money.  1/8/2025 1 Comment Ideally...The new space rocks. It is huge, being three big rooms. Many things can be going on at the same time now. I’m so happy when I come here that I can hardly stand it. Everything about this place is the best. Every time I step through the doors, my face starts to smile. I have been thinking a lot about my life and the future. I need my Mom to figure out how I can come here every day. Ideally I could be schooled by Miss Judy, but I will be happy with any M2H teacher.  12/4/2024 2 Comments GratitudeThis Thanksgiving Mom asked me what I am thankful for. I spelled Mouth to Hand. Being nonspeaking stinks, but there is one thing that is good. Definitely that thing is M2H. Each time I step through the door, I am overjoyed. I have the best time here. Miss Judy and Miss Laurie are the greatest. Bryant and Miss Anne are too. Everyone knows I am smart, and they talk to me like I am a regular kid. That makes me so happy; I am sick of people talking to me like I’m an idiot. So yeah, I am so grateful for the greatest place on earth. Disney can’t hold a candle.  11/5/2024 2 Comments Not Being MeI love Halloween because I love pretending to be someone else. Certainly there is the fun of dressing up in a costume and trick-or-treating. But there is more to it than that for me, as a person with a disability. For a day I get to be someone without a disability. Being a pharaoh this year meant that I was King of Egypt for a day…not Vinny, an 11 year old nonspeaker. It was so much fun and mentally a vacation from this reality. Maybe there will come a time where I love being Vinny, but that’s not now. Most days I hate this person we call Vinny: he is fat and ugly and disabled, and he can’t make his mouth say all the real words in his head. He has to sit in a classroom where he is treated like a moron. I really don’t want to be this Vinny: I want to be cool Vinny who can do things I can be proud of. But for now I will have to be content being a pharaoh for a day.  10/9/2024 2 Comments School MiseryHaving my life dictated to me by my school district is infuriating. The less I have to go to school, the happier and mentally healthier I am. Going to a place where I am seen as nothing more than a cognitively impaired vegetable is totally depressing. I just don’t understand why they insist that I am totally a moron. If they would come here, they could talk to me and see that I am smart. But instead they force my mother to bring me there, where I spend my days doing infantile work. You would think that they almost want me to be cognitively impaired. They refused to allow me to come here to be educated. There, I am doing only kindergarten level work, for example. But here I am doing eighth grade math. Basically, it seems to me that all they have to do is visit M2H and spend an hour watching me. The fact that they refuse to do so tells me that they do not care that I am suffering.  Today there is sunshine in my heart. I believe the reason is Judy. I got so excited when Mom told me we got an appointment with her. Coming to M2H is the best thing in my life. The thing about this place is that real love is here: we can feel it. There’s no other place I got that feels like it. It feels like there is more sunshine inside than outside. And that warmth seeps right into my heart. I’m positively giddy, Judy says, and that’s true. All I want to do is to feel the sunshine every day.  |
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June 2025
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MOUTH TO HAND LEARNING CENTER, INC.
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