‘Dear 1st and 3rd grade families, We will have our winter programs on Friday, December 13th. The first grade will perform at 9 am and the third grade will perform at 10 am.’ When I read that email I felt the familiar twinge in my stomach. Ugh. What are the odds that those two grades perform on the same day? Why? I do everything I can to avoid third grade boys. See, I have a first and a would-be third grader. Except my third grader doesn’t attend school with his…
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As we age, our interests change. They evolve. They grow with us. But what if they don’t? What if they stay the same year after year? In the real world, they call it age appropriate. It means teenagers shouldn’t be watching Barney or adults shouldn’t be believing in Santa. Someone once told me to turn off the cartoons and put on the National Geographic channel. I still laugh about that. They thought parents like me should be forcing interests. My son is 9. He’s amazing. And he loves Peppa, Barney,…
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My son has never won an award. He has never sung in a choir concert or scored the winning goal. In fact, he doesn’t even know what any of those things are. You won’t find any of his accomplishments in a yearbook. Or on Facebook either. And that makes me sad for him. Because he matters. He matters a lot. I’ll admit to you that for a lot of years I didn’t celebrate. Yup, that’s the truth. We had more hard than good. We mostly just survived. And I focused…
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The hardest question you will ever ask is why. You will fixate on it. You will manically go over it all in your head. Everything you did or didn’t do during the months that turned into the years that got you to this point. You will justify and find reasoning that soothes your heart. But you will always come back to one simple question. Why? You can be firmly planted, comfortably and happily, in acceptance and still find yourself haunted by the why. Why my child? Why my family? Why?…
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So often the most impactful parts of life don’t make sense. I’ve learned that over and over again. Sometimes gracefully. Sometimes not. But see I have this teacher. This little human. He’s taught me more than I can even put into words. He likes colors and squares and rectangles and lines. He likes trains and Peppa and pictures of his brothers and penguins and letters. And the number 35. It used to be 33. And The Price is Right. And he doesn’t care what anyone thinks about it. Because those…
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I take notice of every body of water now. Every stream, every river, every pond, and every lake. I’ll count the 5 gallon buckets that sit unattended in your yard, filled with rain water. I know exactly where your dogs water bowl is. I’ll shut your bathroom doors, and make sure you didn’t forget to drain your bath water. I see every candle. I panic when we come over and they are lit. I’ll feel badly when I ask you to blow them out, and set them up. I pray…
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As I reflect just on the last year alone, the holiday season for us has been so drastically different. Last year at Thanksgiving Caleb was almost 3.5 and we were hyper aware of the holiday festivities being newly diagnosed. We’d researched how to prepare him and considered all of the recommendations. We opted out of going to see family for both Thanksgiving and rather had family over, hoping Caleb would be better off in his own home if we had to be around people we didn’t see too much throughout…
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Autism. You may have heard that word a few times before; although it may not mean that much to you. It probably doesn’t stop you in your tracks when you hear it. It probably doesn’t make your heart drop to your stomach when someone is talking about it. It probably doesn’t relate to you in anyway at all. But to me, it is such a heavy word. It’s a word I will have to carry around on my shoulders for the rest of my life. You see, I have two…
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I started decorating in November and finished shopping the first week of December. I was so excited for this year because my little dude finally understands Christmas. For the first time in almost 6 years, he told Santa what he wanted. It was all going so well and I was so hopeful. I even was able to snap a couple family photos with my phone for our Christmas card. It meant the world to me to just have one…even if it wasn’t perfect. I just wanted one of us together. …
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Here we are in the last month of 2019. Wow! Where did the year go? While doing a late-night Facebook scroll, I read a post from a lovely neighbor that read “what will be the word that describes you in 2019?” I thought about that intently. I am different than I was one year ago. Forever changed by one word. Acceptance. I have a horrible memory and often times can’t even remember why I opened the fridge! Although, there are moments over this past year that have been ingrained…
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