She grabbed the rock above her and pulled herself up. The water rushed cool and quick over our soaked shoes. Steadying herself, my 5 year old reached for the next rock a few feet above her. In the high altitude, we both breathed hard, but her determination pushed us farther as we climbed the waterfall…
Category Archives: Day In And Day Out
Don’t Worry.. Be Happy
This post is actually about worry and happiness, not my own- but my daughter’s. By the time my daughter’s emotional disability developed, we had already dealt with significant medical issues. The kind of medical issues that distract, disable, and leave you broken hearted. Emotional illness is worse. Worse than seeing your toddler poked every hour…
We’re running away…
I cannot ever plan anything in advance with a kid like Jack. I literally decided Tuesday to go on vacation….today. I have forty-eleven-hundred things crammed in to the back of my car, two screaming kids, my own personal pharmacy, enough Lysol to kill a small country, and a husband who is complaining about not knowing…
Strange Milestones We Have Met
Something strange has happened to my perception of childhood milestones. Perhaps because it took my daughter a little longer to meet many of them, I’ve sort of made up my own list along the way. It’s not that I’ve given up watching for the standard markers, it’s more that I appreciate events that other parents…
Your stress is killing you. Here’s how to fight back.
We’re a stressed-out group of parents. I sat with jaw dropped and tears flowing down cheeks as I watched the documentary. A UCSF expert in cellular aging was explaining that special needs moms were one of the best groups to study the negative effects of chronic stress on the human body. Her colleague, a Stanford…
I have handicapped parking
For a reason!! I’ve blogged here before about things that have been said to me either seriously or in passing. Mostly then, I was explaining I don’t always need advice or criticism. I had a situation happen last week that shook me to the core. I’m pretty open and honest about everything, with good reason…
Update & buying friends…
So here goes, today was the orthopedic appointment I talked about 2 weeks ago. No surgery this summer, is what the doctor said. But he may need it further down the line probably 2 more times. I checked to make sure he wasn’t near retirement yet…he assured me he had at least another 15 or…
Eating Issues
We’ve developed a really good system for getting the child to eat when we are together as a family. Like most things now that it has become the routine she doesn’t even need a lot of support for this most of the time, but occasionally she is too tired, anxious, excited, distracted, or angry to sit…
The Gift of Life is Not Free
Modern medicine offers the gift of life. Babies with birth defects are saved. Improved treatment for chronic illness adds years to life expectancy. And while we celebrate these advancements, we often lose sight of the cost that is incurred to support these individuals in our society. The gift of life is not free.
A Home Crossroads
We’ve thought about moving. There’s nothing’s wrong with our house, we love it…but we felt trapped. Trapped with houses all around us, nothing to look at, no escape from the special kind of race we’re running, no reprieve, no privacy to speak as we will without the entire neighborhood in on our private conversations…if we…