I am super excited to be guest blogging today over at Easter Seals. Please check it out HERE – Easter Seals provides resources and services for both kids and adults with disabilities, and I am proud to be a part of it. Easterseals.com Blog.easterseals.com
Sharing Stories of Parenting the Special Needs Child Around the World
I NEED YOUR HELP and I WANT TO SHARE YOUR STORY Parents, I need your help with an important project, looking at special needs parenting from a global perspective. The purpose and focus of this project will be to address the day to day life of raising a young child with special needs. It…
Please stop learning at my daughter’s expense
The first day of summer or the first day of camp are supposed to be exciting and memorable and calm. But sometimes things don’t work out and it doesn’t go your way or the way you thought it should play out. I get that and I am not an evil, mean Mom waiting to pounce…
Growing Up: Transitions and Disability
I have been sitting through meetings these last few weeks to plan the transition of my daughter to middle school. All is going well, and everyone seems to be on board with the plan. But as I sit there at the big table, I fight back my fears and try to sit tall in my chair and…
Since You’ve Been Gone: A Letter to my Mom
Dear Mom, It goes without saying that I miss you so badly my heart hurts, and I cannot believe still to this day (three years later) that when I pick up the phone to call, you will not be there. Some days I can deal pretty well with this, but others I just ache…
The Crazy, Complicated, Upside-Down Feeling of the IEP
Tis’ the season, once again, to face my daughter’s annual IEP. It is one of those meetings you silently dread, while all the time knowing you have to show up and be your best and bring your best game. I rarely have done that. My normal IEP day follows a sleepless night trying to think through…
Caregivers For Special Kids
There is always so much talk about how Mom’s need to care for themselves so that they are able to care for their children. When you Google “Secrets of a Happy Mom” you come up with everything ranging from new moms to moms of teenagers, and all the ways one can find happiness in those…
What A Simple Spring Break Trip Did For This Mom
My family recently traveled for Spring Break – for a lot of reasons other than just “because everyone else does it.” I felt we needed a drastic change of scenery. We have been on a hamster wheel for way too many months – full of therapy after therapy, doctors’ visits, hockey practices, hockey games, homework,…
The super hero flexibility of the special needs parent
I would not say I am a particularly flexible person, in the physical sense. Can’t quite remember my last back bend or splits – but it was definitely sometime in my early childhood. Yet, people are always commenting on my flexibility, my patience, and my ability to see the sunny side of the street. I…
The Waiting Room : Now
Ten years ago I was a much different Mom sitting in this waiting room. Now, seasoned beyond my wildest dreams, I have sat in more waiting rooms than I care to count. The Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago is a massive place. Floors of people who have suffered injuries, or strokes, or surgeries stay here and…