Ciera Blackmon Shares How She Brings Holiday Joy to Sensory-Affected Kids

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, Sierra is a mom, but she's also missus Claws.
You've got to hear the story of how she is
bringing such joy to sensory affected kids, kids with disabilities.
She and her husband truly are turning into Santa and
missus Claws. I heard the most beautiful story about you
and your husband and what you do for kids, especially

(00:22):
during the holiday season. But can we go back a
little bit and learn a little bit about your story
and then kind of move it up to present day
and how you've turned something really hard into something beautiful
for other families.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
Yeah, absolutely, so a little bit about us. We've been
wanting a baby for a very long time, and it
we learned that it was going to be a lot
harder for us to have kids, so we had to
go through for a lot to have them. When we
finally got pregnant, we were refraid it with two beautiful
babies and my son, who has cerebral palsy, he he

(01:01):
was not he was not digging being inside with his sister,
so he he was out at twenty seven weeks. He
was very adamant. He was like, I am not staying
in here any longer. And he had he which is
on theme. If you've ever ever met him, he is

(01:22):
an absolute dream. But he is very theatrical. He had
he had to come in guns of blazon, you know,
he was so great. He uh he had a grade
four brain hemorrhage on the right side and a grade
three on the left. And when we were he was
in the NICQ, you and our doctors were telling us
that he wasn't going to make it. They were they

(01:45):
were saying that he was going to pass away and
that we should say our goodbyes, and we were. We
were spending a lot more time with him. At that time,
our daughter passed away. She bought a very uncurable disease
and she passed, and so we were we were dealing

(02:06):
with that, but then we just started to kind of
head on into him. So, you know, we dived into
everything he was doing. And he surprised all of the doctors.
He I mean, they'd come to us and be like,
we don't know what's happening. We have no idea how
he's still here, we have no idea how he's healing.
We're just confused. And we were so blessed and thankful

(02:29):
and we just praise God like every day because he
was doing, so he was doing much better than anyone
ever thought he was going to do. When he got out,
we had a bit of a rough time finding therapy
for him because it was just it's hard to find therapy.

(02:51):
That is no joke. It's really hard. And after a
year we finally found this one place. It's called Tear Memorial.
We know it well yep, yes, they are wonderful. They
took him on and he was doing three different therapies,
so he was doing physical, speech, and occupational and he

(03:14):
did not like it in the beginning. So the first
year was really rough, but he was starting to really
like get better and we it came to Christmas time
and he was We were his therapist who runs the
Christmas that I think you probably heard it was the

(03:36):
Sensory Safe Santa. Yes, yes, So they were worried because
the Santa, the yearbook that they had the year before
had passed away and they were looking for a new Santa. Well,
Santa's are really expensive. I don't know if you've ever
looked into like printing a Santa. They run from like
three hundred to like six hundred dollars an hour. Wow, wow,

(04:00):
which is which is crazy. So we my mom who
takes him most of the time. Me and my husband
are both full time employees. We work forty hour jobs.
So it's I bless you mom, god bles mom. Yes, right,
she is. She is a godsend. She is. We could

(04:22):
not do this without her. She is wonderful. And she
told his therapist. She was like, well, you know his
mom and dad and my son, his mom and dad,
they do Santa and Missus Claws and we've done a
couple of years before that, just like at like our
hometown's Christmas market. So we would just do Santa and

(04:45):
Missus Claus there and you know, the kids loved it.
And she told them about that and they were like, oh,
well do you think she they would do that? And
my mom called me and she's like, would you be
Santa and Missus Claws? I go, Mom, really, do you
even have to ask? It's my favorite thing to do.
So we were like, yeah, absolutely, and they were. They

(05:07):
asked us, I think once, if we wanted to be paid,
and I was like, oh, you like you want you
You've made my son walk, You're teaching him how to walk,
You're getting him in a position to where he doesn't
need to be in a wheelchair. Why would I not
donate my time? Why wouldn't my husband not donate his time?

(05:29):
And so last year we did a small little fundraiser
and we got some stuff for goodie bags and it
was really fun and the kids really loved it. And
this year I had a lot of time to plan
and so in January, because I'm a planner, I'm a
big planner, I have to be, I was like, Okay,

(05:49):
well we're going to do a toy drive this year
for sensory safe toy like sensory toys to help them
with therapies. And so so that's what we're gonna do.
My husband was like, whatever you want to do, I
am on board. I am your hero. He was. He's great,
and he he helped me with toys and when we

(06:12):
were when we thought we were going to be short
on toys, and I told him, I was like, I
don't think we're going to get enough toys. And I
was really like sad and upset about it, and he
was like, don't worry. He goes, We'll just buy them.
Like and so he took our money and he was like, here,
this is the money we've saved, go buy the toys
and then if people donate cash, great, then we'll use

(06:35):
that to get more toys. And so we were able
to get enough toys. Obviously people started donating and giving
up giving us more toys, and I was like, oh
and it was great we did. That's amazing. Yeah, yeah,
it was. I love doing that stuff. It gets bigger
every year. This year we had fourteen kids and it

(06:59):
was awesome. They were so happy they were it was
really cute. The first little boy that came and saw
us was well, other than my son was probably the cutest.
My son's always the cutest, but the first little boy
he came in. He looked at my husband who's in

(07:20):
he's in toul Santa, and he has he has the
actual beard, you know, it's not fake. It's like it's his.
And he goes just like shell shocked, and he walks
right up to him, gives him a big hug and
he kisses his cheek and then he whispers in his ear,

(07:42):
you're my favorite person. And my husband was almost in tears.
He was like, that was the sweetest little that It
just he's like that makes everything worth it, Like, no
matter how much money we spend on the outfits and
the toys and the stuff we do. He's like that, right,
there was payment back enough. Yeah, And our son got

(08:07):
to see him. We think he recognized him as dad,
but he kept saying ho ho ho. So you never know.

Speaker 1 (08:18):
Now is this all at Tier? These are the kids
that are at Tier now?

Speaker 2 (08:23):
Yes, so these are all the Tier kids. It's it's
typically closed to so we do the Tier Woodlands. We
live a decent ways away, but that's the closest one,
so we don't mind driving all the way into the woodlands. Sure,
and so this one is just open for the Tier Woodlands.

(08:45):
But I'm hoping that maybe next year we can donate
a little more time to other ones if they need it.
They were talking about expanding maybe a little bit, so
we'll see. I would love it if they did, because
we just get a portion of these kids, and I

(09:08):
don't know. I can just think about if I couldn't
take my son to see Santa, like g at the mall,
So I can't take Easton to go see Santa because
the malls are so busy and loud, and those lines
are so long and there's nothing to do in them.

(09:29):
So he gets overstimulated, he gets very easily, like he's
like done very quickly because there's nothing he can do.
And then he doesn't want to he doesn't want to
sit on the stranger's lap instantly.

Speaker 1 (09:45):
Need to get to know him a little bit and
feel comfortable.

Speaker 2 (09:47):
Yeah, he needs to warm up.

Speaker 1 (09:50):
Like that too, I mean really.

Speaker 2 (09:52):
And yeah, honestly, And it's really tough for it's tough
for normal kids. So when you the fact that these
kids have some sensory issues where they can't do loud
noises or they they don't want to touch Santa because
it suits velvety, or the lights are too bright or

(10:15):
the music's too loud. When you add all of that together,
it makes it almost impossible. And some parents with kids
with sensory issues and disabilities just choose not to do it.
And that's my favorite thing is getting a picture with
Santa with my son, and because it's one of the

(10:38):
few things that is that we look forward to that
he can do. That's, for lack of a better word, normal,
I can't find a better word. He's not normal, but
he has a disability and so there's a lot of
things we won't ever be able to do with him.

(10:59):
So like sports won't be able to do I mean,
well maybe who knows. I mean, he surprises us every day, right, right,
so maybe one day he'll be able to do sports.
But I mean, and so these are like the little
things that I'm make it to where he can do
this because we're able to give these kids that area.

(11:21):
And to explain the process a little bit, so we're
sitting in a room with maybe just a couple adults.
A couple media people are there, but they're like off
to the side and they don't interact, you know, and
the kids don't really like there's a ton of room.
And then their therapists are there, so it's just us,

(11:42):
the therapists, their parents, and the kid, the one kid,
and they come in one at a time, ah, and
they take we give we get ten minutes with them,
so there's ten minutes to warm up. Sometimes we go over,
sometimes we don't, but it just depends on each kid.
And some kids warm up instantly and they're there and

(12:04):
they're out. And then some kids are very like not
going near you, so you have to kind of like
coax them over and like be very gentle and go
would you like to like sit on Santa's lap? Do
you want to give us a high five. You know,
very slow process to introducing them to Santa, so it's
not all of a sudden here, put him on the lap,

(12:26):
take a picture while you're screaming, and then let's go.
It's you get to go meet Santa. Maybe you get
to warm up to him, and mom and dad get
a very calm picture. Sometimes we're on the floor. Sometimes
me and Josh are sitting on the floor with the
kids because they just don't want to sit with Santa.

(12:48):
This one little boy, he did not want to get
close to Santa. And I think it's a starstruck kind
of feeling because when when little one see Santa is like, okay,
I want to do anything wrong. I know, I know,
might not get to wasist it, and so he so
I moved over to sit by him, and Santa moved

(13:12):
closer to me. So there was me between Santa and
the kid and we just sat there and we just
talked and mom and dad got some pictures and it
was it's those little moments where it's like, this is
this is why we do it, so that the kids
get a chance to meet Santa without the trauma of

(13:32):
being rushed through Santa and the parents get to see
their kids smiling because they get to see Santa.

Speaker 3 (13:40):
It's just it's it warms my heart, it really does,
because I couldn't think of I couldn't imagine not being
able to get pictures of my son with Santa, even
if Santa isn't.

Speaker 2 (13:55):
His dad, your husband.

Speaker 1 (13:57):
What's your son's name?

Speaker 2 (13:59):
Easton? East Easton?

Speaker 1 (14:01):
So now Easton obviously a gift to you because maybe
you were involved in the hustle and bustle of life
and then Easton comes along and you need to slow down, right.

Speaker 2 (14:12):
Yes, yes, he is. He has made us kind of
look at everything differently and everything is just a lot Wieter.

Speaker 1 (14:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (14:27):
And we do a lot of things to cater towards
what he needs. So where we would typically like a
small thing, so like grocery shopping, where we would typically
go and we would go during a busier time, we
actively look for non busy times. Both from Easton and me.

(14:50):
I don't like I don't like busy places. I can't
do them. But Easton's even worse because he gets really
really overwhelmed and he so we try to do everything
with how he likes face. So if he needs a
place to be quiet. Our place is dead quiet, and

(15:13):
we give him that that opening. Now, there's sometimes where
it's like, no, we have to do the loud noises
for a little bit, you know, But for the most part,
he just lets us breathe. There are days where he
does not let us breathe, where he is screaming and
there is nothing you can do but sit with him,

(15:33):
and he likes it when you sit with him. He's
there's a lot of times where it's it's no longer
us time, me and my husband time, our me time
or him time. It's east In time, right, it's the
time we get to spend with him.

Speaker 1 (15:52):
What would you say to two parents who do not
have a child who's got these difficulties? No see stories
about you know, a not very nice person at the
grocery store judging you, or things like that. What would
you say, Because this is a good time of the
year where our hearts are a little more sensitive to others,

(16:12):
and it's just that joyful time of the year, right,
and we want to be kind and do the right thing.
So what would you say to parents who do not
have a special needs child to kind of make us aware,
you know, so we could be a little more empathetic.

Speaker 2 (16:26):
So screaming. They scream a lot. So if you if
you see his kids screaming, I would just try to
ignore it because if it is a kid with disability,
they can't help it. My son has a hard time
communicating with words, so he screams, and he'll scream bloody,

(16:50):
murder and store, and he'll be hitting himself and you know,
and we'll have to stop in the middle of an
aisle and be just pick up every respot, like take
up the whole thing to try to calm him down.
And it's embarrassing because you're like, because you know people

(17:10):
are watching you, and you think they're judging you. So
just try not to judge, like the parents that you
see that are just stopped in the middle of the
aisle trying to calm a kid down, or if they're
kids on the floor. So I know that I've had
to put my son easton crawls. He can't really walk yet.

(17:31):
I mean he walks with his walker, but he can't
walk unassistant, so we said him sometimes we have to
sit him on the ground to calm down. And we'll
sit with him in the middle of a store, and
I know, people are looking at me like where are
you sitting your son on the dirty floor and where
are y'all sitting there? And it's like, well, no, I

(17:52):
have to sit here because otherwise everyone's going to hear
the absolute blood curling scream. And I'm not taking I'm
not taking him outside in the fold to deal with
his timber tanswrum. I have to deal with it there.
And that's that's what I would say, is the most
important is just be patient and be calm, and just

(18:15):
if you see a parent sitting on the floor, just
be patient with them.

Speaker 1 (18:21):
And just really, I mean it's it's kind of out
of ignorance if you don't realize that this obviously this
child is unable to communicate and he's having a bad moment.
And give some grace to the parents. My lord, you've
got to deal with this all the time, you know
your child, right, yes?

Speaker 2 (18:37):
Yeah? And that's that's another thing, is like I would say,
don't go up to the parent and say, oh, well
you should do this like that. Ain't. No, don't do
that because it because I haven't Yeah, I haven't had
that happen yet. But I think it's because I have
the face of do not come to me right all right,

(19:01):
but I've seen that happen a few times, like, don't
don't tell me how to parent him. I mean, right now,
this is what we have to do. I'm sorry that
I'm a bit of an inconvenience for everybody, but he's
he's our main focus, and I could honestly care less
if I'm an intervenience team right.

Speaker 1 (19:21):
Now, you are just the most beautiful missus clause. Obviously,
your son is your gift, your angel that God has
given you to take care of, and uh teaches you
and your husband so much, and all the people around you,
and the gift that you're giving to these other kids
and their families is beautiful. Sierra.

Speaker 2 (19:41):
We we love it, and we love it. We love
every part of it. We look forward to it the
whole year. We always add something to Santa's suit, like
to the outfits. If you ever want to look it up, don't. Well,
I don't think there's any pictures this year yet. I'm
not sure.

Speaker 1 (20:01):
You have to send them to us so we can
get them up on the on our Instagram.

Speaker 2 (20:05):
I will, I'll send you some. So last year his
Santa suit wasn't like a very fancy one. It was
just one that we've we've had for a while, and
then this year we were able to buy him a
little of a better Santa suit, so we upgraded Santa.
And next year what we're doing is we're upgrading Missus Claws.

(20:26):
So we add something new every year, so that eventually,
I told my husband, eventually, when we're like sixty two
or eighty years old, when all of our hairs, you'll
be legit. Yeah, I know, we'll have such good Santa
and Missus Claws outfits that there's just no question about

(20:46):
it that, oh my gosh, you are Santa. I mean,
we did have one kid come up to him. We
were we had to go grocery shopping after the event,
so we went to Target and we were in Santa
Missus Claus. We had one kid follow him around that
was like fake Santa, and he was so upset. He
was like, do I not look real? And I go, no,

(21:08):
you look very real. They're just that's kids are like
that sometimes, I go, don't worry. When we're sixty and
eighty years old, you will look so much like Sananta
that they're gonna look at you and they're gonna be
so kind and so polite, like.

Speaker 1 (21:26):
Just like the Santa Claus, like Tim Allen, Right.

Speaker 2 (21:29):
Yeah, like they're gonna just see you and be like
ooh okay, Santa's here. I have to be on my
best behavior, right, do anything? Listen to Mom and Dad
got it well, So.

Speaker 1 (21:40):
You definitely are a gift to those families, Sierra. And
I know you're gonna if you're not missus Clause yet,
you will turn into her. And you're far is already there.
The heart is already there.

Speaker 2 (21:51):
Oh and yes, as fool.

Speaker 1 (21:54):
What do you get your little guy for Christmas? What's
he looking for this year?

Speaker 2 (21:58):
Oh? Man, it's always hard because we try to get
a lot of sensory toys. Right, I was looking at
there's this for his big present. There is this big
it's like an inflatable like a bounce house, right, but
it's not like a big one. It's like a for toddlers.

(22:20):
And they sell it at Walmart, and so it's not
too expensive. And so I told my husband, I go,
we can get him that. And he likes to slide
and he likes to swing and he likes to bounce,
and so I'm like, let's get him that. That'll be
great and then he a lot of his other toys though,
are a lot of sensory things. He's big into, Like

(22:43):
he's big into spelling and math. So he's three and
he's spelling words like apple and gargantuan and wow, he's
a very smart kid, very smart. He's adding, he's doing
like nine plus four is thirteen and you know five

(23:03):
plus fours nine. We're doing all the ad and everything.
So we're getting him a lot of like math and
spelling toys. Is that's he just likes that, you know,
So they're out of his age range. But I'm like,
this is what you like to do, so good job.

Speaker 1 (23:23):
And I bet mom is making a huge difference to
spending so much time with him. I mean, here's she
She is now a grandmam because of that precious boy.
So she's going to invest everything she can into him
as well.

Speaker 2 (23:35):
She does. She does so much for us, So she
takes him to all of his therapies. I'm blessed that
my job lets me work from home two days a week, okay,
and so I get to take him to pre K
two days a week, but my mom takes him all
of the other times, and she takes him to all
of his therapy sessions, and honestly, that's for the better.

(23:59):
I'm mom is such a good like therapist therapy person
because she pushes him to do more even if he
doesn't want to.

Speaker 1 (24:10):
Good for her.

Speaker 2 (24:12):
With me and my husband, me and Josh, we are
kind of like, well, no, he doesn't want to do it,
so it's not it's fine, right little bit. Yeah, she's
great at it. She's like, no, we are not doing this.
We're doing this. And he sometimes he listens, but sometimes

(24:35):
he's he's a he's a three year old and he
acts like it, but he she's the best for his therapies.
And my mom's so good at it. She is so good,
and she's good at everything. She does so much for
us because he has a lot of medical issues, I mean,
so she takes care of all of our medical stuff

(24:55):
for him, which is like a weight off of my shoulder.
So I only have to worry about making sure that
he's I do all the normal mom stuff and my
mom does all of like the medical stuff for us.
She always, you know, checks in with us because she's
always worried she's gonna overstep. She never can, she never does.

(25:20):
She's real. What's mom's name, Tina?

Speaker 1 (25:23):
Tina names Tina, and she you have to give them
Pina something special for Christmas, which you did your son, yes,
and the ability that she can take such good care
of him.

Speaker 2 (25:34):
Yeah, And I'm I'm excited I didn't get her this.
Our family does Christmas a little different. We do. Each
adult gets one person a gift so that we can
get bigger gifts right our family, and then we all
get the kids something. But I didn't get her this year,
and I was real bummed out because we were going
to buy our crews and so I told my husband,

(25:57):
I'm like, I'm going to get her next year and
we're gonna go on a cruise together. And so actually,
I think what we're going to do is we do
a memorial thing for my daughter every year, and next
year we're going on a cruise for it, and we're
gonna take my son. And I thought, I was like,
you know what, I could get another room because it's

(26:20):
not that much money, or we could get like a
big suite and we could all sleep in the same suite,
and then it's not too bad to add two more
people to that cruise, you know. And I told her
I was like, so, I think that's what I'm going
to do, is I'm going to take her on the
cruise with us on the next memorial vacation we have.

(26:42):
And I'm really excited about it. I've been talking up
with my husband about it.

Speaker 1 (26:46):
Yeah, that's a beautiful thing to honor your little girl
with a memorial cruise like that. I love that. Yeah,
I love it gives a lot of parents who have
lost a child an idea to make it a beautiful event,
you know, celebratory event that you got to at least
name her, know her for the time that God allowed

(27:06):
you to.

Speaker 2 (27:07):
We we do something every year, so we do this
year we went to Corpos and last year we went
to San Antonio. But we try to do something every
year to instead of being at home or the year before,
instead of being at home and sad and just wallowing
in that sadness, we take my son, me and my hasband,

(27:30):
me and Josh, we take my son and we go
do something. So we just go. When we went to
San Antonio, we went to like an aquarium, and we
went to the Lego Land and we just went to
do a bunch of stuff. Sierra.

Speaker 1 (27:47):
It just sounds like the it's just a beautiful story,
and I just encourage other listeners get involved like you
two have and bless families. And we're just glad that
you were able to share your story with us, and
we're gonna put it. You gotta send me those pictures
so we can put Missus Claws and Santa with the
kids at tear because that it is an amazing place.

Speaker 2 (28:10):
Yeah, absolutely, I'll send them to you for sure. Thank
you all for listening. I really enjoy it. Welcome.

Speaker 1 (28:15):
We wish you a very merry Christmas to your whole
family

Speaker 2 (28:18):
And merry Christmas tea all too.