Last night our church had a family game night. I was playing Farkle at a table with other ladies, two who are currently pregnant, one with her first child. Oh, the anticipation! The glittery eyes, the talk of baby things like car seats, strollers, carriers, sippy cups and swings. I loved joining in on the…
It was 12:30 in the morning and I was lying in bed, wide awake. I had managed to fall asleep for a few minutes but for some reason woke up. Sleep did not come, so I finally went downstairs, made a cup of tea, went into my home office and got to work. I knew…
A year ago, Ruth Marcus wrote in her article in the The Washington Post entitled “I would’ve aborted a fetus with Down syndrome. Women need that right” … “That was not the child I wanted. That was not the choice I would have made. You can call me selfish, or worse, but I am in…
This past week, a friend of mine shared a Facebook memory picture of her son. He passed two years ago due to complications of muscular dystrophy. He was in his early 30s but was thirteen years old the last time I saw him and my friend. We were living in Missouri at that time, and…
One of the things about parenting a child or young person with additional needs is that life is never predictable. Just when you think that everything is going along quite well, out of nowhere something will happen that turns everything upside down and breaks it apart again. That this might happen on a fairly regular…
As I stood in my kitchen sipping coffee, I realized with a lurch in my stomach that I still hadn’t written anything this month for the blog. In my head I heard the voice that often likes to taunt me, “You’ve got to write, you’ve got to pack for your trip, you’ve got to clean…
When caregiving doesn’t spark your joy, what can you do about it? That’s a question I’ve been mulling over lately. Ever since I posted a survey about stress and compassion fatigue in caregivers at my website. Within 2 days, the survey had been completed 500 times. Less than 3 weeks later, that number has risen to…
It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to write a blog post. Every time I sat down to write, I couldn’t. I had no new ideas. Nothing new to share with you. I called it writer’s block. But really, it’s not that I couldn’t write. It’s that I felt like my voice didn’t really…
Here in the Midwest winter has finally come upon us, as I stare out of my window and look at the snow-blanketed ground that has now essentially frozen over with the drop into single digit temperatures. This makes the several months following the Christmas season especially difficult, save for a few holidays that add a…
I remember when Charlie, my son who has autism, was much younger the hard road we traveled in finding those schools that would help him the best. At first, inclusion was the most important thing to me. Later, I changed to making sure he was being taught the grade level skills or life and social…