Posts Tagged ‘Special Needs’
Acceptance Is Not About Resignation
The special needs “warrior mother” is a well-known figure. She’s the mother that kept pushing, read all the literature, challenged the doctors, demanded services, lobbied congress: in short, she changed the world and then went on Oprah to promote the book. Chances are she’s reading this right now… boy, am I in trouble! Yet how often do we hear of the warrior fathers? Crickets. When I first heard the experts murmur the A word, my defense mechanisms kicked into high gear and I immediately erected a wall of denial around…
Read MoreThere’s Nothing ‘High Functioning’ About It
My son Daniel has been challenging since the beginning. He is strong-willed with a big personality and has even bigger feelings. He cried all the time as a baby. I attributed his big emotions back then to him being in pain. He had a cast on his leg the first few months of his life due to his club foot. It never occurred to me that something else was going on. I assumed because he talked and walked before his siblings that he was a normal kid. I wanted and…
Read MoreMay You Always Know How Much You’ll be Missed
Nearly every day we get a letter, or an email. Some have good news, some carry rejection. Like a version of the infamous Dr. Seuss poem, the messages and envelopes tell a modern-day story of the places you might go. New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Massachusetts. Some schools are in small towns, other sprawl amongst tall buildings and busy sidewalks. Some have large, rambling campuses with extravagant dining halls. Others boast state-of-the art technology, or winning sports teams. All of them are far from home. He sees the return addresses, when…
Read MoreHe Needs More Time
People always ask me how much my son Coops understands. I think they ask because he’s nonverbal and often it may appear to the untrained eye that he isn’t paying attention or comprehending. My answer is a lot. He understands so much. He is always listening. And when I don’t know the answer…I presume competence and encourage others around us to do the same. There is one thing though that I know he doesn’t understand. He doesn’t understand that his younger brother is growing up and will soon want his…
Read MoreA Mother’s Hardest Day
Today I witnessed a mother’s hardest day. Her daughter’s funeral. She was 14 years old. She died for no reason. It was one of those things that make no sense and makes you wonder why and how and question everything. She is my cousin. The woman. Her dad and my dad are brothers. I did not know her daughter. I need no condolences. And yet I sobbed through the entire funeral. As a mother to three boys, I felt an ache of the emptiness. And the loss. Hers. I thought…
Read MoreLearning How to Dance in the Rain
This too shall pass. There is a saying that is said at one time or another to every parent. This too shall pass. I remember being told those words as I held each of my newborns, exhausted from cluster feeding and lack of sleep. Again during the never ending messes that kids make. During potty training woes and tantrums over blue cups and the wrong shoes. And I guess in most cases it’s true right? The hard moments do pass. Usually. Babies start sleeping. Messes stop. Little humans learn to…
Read MoreErase the Word
A few holidays ago, a friend and I were chatting, when she said it. ‘That’s so retarded’ in reference to something happening in her life. At first I was floored. I hadn’t heard anyone say that word in I don’t know how long. She wasn’t done though. The story went on. She described a place and people. As I listened to her, waiting to see if she’d notice my face, I thought about how she is an educated woman. She is a kind woman. She is not malicious or evil.…
Read MoreDear Tired Special Needs Mom
I know how you feel. I feel it too. It can be exhausting caring for your child with special needs. Every mom feels worn down, but this “tired” feeling you and I feel is much greater. This word “tired” for us means way more than the lack of sleep. Every minute of every day there is worry. Worry that your child’s school might call you again. We worry about when the next meltdown will occur and what set it off. We worry about how our child is feeling because they…
Read MoreSuddenly, I Was a Special Needs Parent
Before my daughter was diagnosed the world of special needs was unknown to me. When I dreamed of motherhood being a special needs parent never crossed my mind. Suddenly I joined a club I never thought I would be a part of. Special needs terrified me. Just those two words sent chills down my spine. It was a world I knew nothing about. And then a picture will come across my memories newsfeed and it suddenly pulls me back to the days prior to being a special needs parent. I…
Read MoreThe Tender Things
Mama, what is a family? A family? Well, my child A family is at once The easiest And the hardest Thing to build Think of it as a garden Maybe you expected rows and rows of neat tulips Standing straight and tall in their church pews Eating organic apples and placing the cores neatly in the trash can Instead, you have a field full of wildflowers Colorful, shrieking wildflowers Who eat your leftovers with their fingers And leave gum wrappers all over the house It was not supposed to be…
Read More