Counting Their Blessings

Against all hope, one mum is doing all she can to help her preemie twins – who have a host of developmental challenges – shine. She shares her story with EVELINE GAN.

- Eveline Gan

Enter the Perez home and the first thing you will notice are its walls, almost all of which are covered with children’s drawings.

The floor-to-ceiling homemade collage might be nothing more than just a bunch of kiddy doodles to most people. But for Christian Perez – or Chris as she is known to family and friends – they are a precious reminder of her 12-year-old daughter Amor’s developmental progress over the last few years.

Amor suffers from multiple developmental delays, which have affected her coordination and motor skills. Chris, 42, recalls how at the age of seven, her daughter’s drawings of happy smiling people had straight lips because she couldn’t draw curves.

“But she kept drawing and eventually had a breakthrough. It was my husband’s idea to paste the drawings on the walls to motivate her,” the stay-at-home mum says.

It took Chris a while to get used to the idea. “I always thought a home should be covered by nice canvas paintings, not children’s drawings. But we will do anything the kids want to do – even if it means covering our walls with their drawings – because we believe it gives them the motivation to keep trying,” she says.

The Perezes believe this positive and encouraging method of parenting has helped their daughter Amor and her twin brother, Nathan, trudge on amid their numerous developmental challenges.

A MULTITUDE OF HEALTH ISSUES

Born premature at 32 weeks following a complicated pregnancy that left Chris on bedrest for two months, the twins suffered multiple medical and developmental issues at birth.

Before conceiving the twins, Chris had three heartbreaking miscarriages.

At birth, Nathan was born blue and had a “hole” in the brain, causing cerebral palsy that affected control of his lower limbs.