For the first time since writing for 5 Minutes for Special Needs I am at a bit of a loss of what to write. Often I know days in advance what I will write, and it becomes a finely crafted piece before I hit publish. Usually at some point on Tuesday inspiration will strike and…
Category Archives: Family Life
When she won’t hug Grandma
We flew 8 hours with 4 kids and umpteen bags across the country to visit Grandma. Within 2 minutes they’d already hurt her feelings. It’s always been stressful to balance the expectations of extended family and the needs of my two older girls, adopted as toddlers from foster care. Both their difficult history and their…
Gourmet baby from the getgo…
Do you cook seperate for someone in the family? Do they have special dietary restrictions or needs? My son has a dairy allergy. I say an allergy because it appears that if we avoid it all together we have a sweeter life. We’ve never had an official test, but doctor’s have said why test you…
And What About GOD?
People with cognitive impairment struggle to understand concepts. So how can we explain to them the ultimate concept … GOD? If spirituality is important to your family, helping your child understand God can be a life-long challenge.
At last! There is HOPE.
“There is hope for your child.” “And for your family.” Before you throw your computer across the room, bear with me for a moment. Because I’ve oft wanted to throw the computer (or throw up…) when people band-aided my heartbreak with platitudes over the years. So I understand. But today, after another hours-long appointment with…
Eradicate the “disease”?
A while back there was an article about a new test that would identify if your child had Down syndrome earlier in the pregnancy in a less invasive way. Dr. Patsalis was excited about this new test because it could help the medical community “slowly eradicate the disease” that is Down syndrome. I could go into…
Reports from Inside the Sandwich
It’s hard to say when, exactly, we became members of the “sandwich generation.” If I had to guess I would say it started around the time that my husband flew to his mother’s home in order to drive her back to our home so that she could meet our twins. This was about six months…
It’s not just about your kids.
It’s hard enough to remember to eat and shower, let alone remember to call that friend or have enough mental space to grieve our own losses on top of all the ways we care for our kids. But if we don’t, our families suffer. And our kids never learn how to deal with stress well….
Learning to ride…one step at a time…
A Cowboy Needs a Horse Johnny lives in a big city, but has everything a cowboy could want (Everything, everything) He has a place to pan for gold (Panning, panning) And he has time to shoot a buffalo everyday (Shooting, shooting) And every night, he dreams he’s a cowboy riding the rangeFinally found the words…
Getting Better All the Time
When Ian used to have school breaks, it was really rough. On all of us. His Early Intervention Provider had a really funky schedule and it was not uncommon for him to have 2-3 weeks off during winter holidays, spring break and summer. For a typical child, 2-3 weeks off is difficult. For a child…