I see it every week…the contained grief of a special needs mom as they see the missed milestones or hear the test results. I talk weekly to these mamas at my work. And yesterday it hit me clearly that they also need to grieve the parent they would have imagined themselves to be. So I write this and say yes mama,… Read More
Dear Younger Me, I miss you at times. I look back and think about the days where your greatest worry was convincing the toddler to branch out and try something besides string cheese and crackers and whose turn it was to unload the dishwasher. You worried about the jeans that no longer fit around those postpartum hips and you thought… Read More
It’s Spina Bifida Awareness Month. Israel has Spina Bifida and the form he has is called myelomeningocele. If you google “myelomeningocele”, you will read that it is the most “severe” or “serious” form of Spina Bifida. And if you go a little further and look up the words severe and serious, you will see words like grave, critical, dour, grim,… Read More
We went to the park and Israel was excited to go play with all the kids he saw crawling on the equipment. I placed him in the sand and he quickly army crawled toward the group of kids by the slide. He struggled to make it across the sand and as he neared, the kids darted across the sand to… Read More
I’m sitting crammed in one of those little kids chairs and my hands are sweaty. It smells like crayons, stinky boy feet and someone’s leftover lasagna. Mentally I calm my body and try to remember negotiation tactics or hostage tips from movies I’ve seen, I’ve got nothing. So, I sit and try not to fill in the quiet with senseless… Read More
I’ll never forget the day my two boys were sitting in the bathtub making ice cream cones on top of each other’s head out of soap and in the process creating a lake outside the tub. My 5 year old, Isaac suddenly stopped mid-soap and gawked at his brother, 3 year old Joel. “Mom”, he gasped “Joel’s ear is gone!”…. Read More