Tag Archives | parenting

“retarded” is never the right word

I had to have one of the toughest conservations a parent has to have with a child. Not THAT conversation. We had that conversation a long time ago. It involved graphs and diagrams and cookies. My 14yo son wanted to tell me about the funny thing his school buddies did. The story began with, ” [...]

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the dance of sacrifice

When two parents are separating it’s easy to let anger and hurt take priority over the children you share. Normal people, those unhindered by handicaps, have the luxury of furious departures. Something the wheelchair, and the limitations that go with it, have forced upon us is greater compromise. The reasons that we can no longer [...]

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they grow so fast

  How did this happen? They were just babies. I have the proof. They are going to be amazing adults if the outstanding kids they have become is any sign of things to come. Every day I get to spend with them is more precious than the last. *OOOF* my heart

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Invisalign: year one down

We’ve been at this Invisalign thing with Nathaniel for a little over a year. We’ve had the occasional bump in the aligner road. Nathaniel has forgotten his aligners on a food tray and had them thrown away. He forget to get his next set from the orthodontist and his teeth had started to move backwards. [...]

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being enough parent for my kids

We’ve raised monsters. Amazing, incredible monsters. It’s such a weird line I walk between being as firm as they need and as lenient as they deserve. These kids have been through thing that would break most adults. Cancer. A come. Strokes. A life transformed to deal with a handicap. Now they have parents going through [...]

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High School Orientation

We went for “Freshmen Schedule Orientation” at Nathaniel’s soon-to-be high school. Otherwise known as “Did high school girl always look like THAT?” and “ENOUGH WITH THE BOUNCING!” day. I’m thinking of strategies. Stealing his cell phone and broadcasting a text message “thanx 4 ue support with this Herpes outbreak.” Jsnking his Facebook account and leaving [...]

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do over

There are days you wake and by the time you lay your head back on the pillow you just want to call “DO OVER!” You have no idea of the shitstorm of events about to start just by brushing the sleep from your eyes. Instead of birds chirping. The smell of coffee brewing. Even the [...]

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working together at working together

Peter helped me with my shoes. He pushed me down the road to the neighbor’s house. We took turns talking to the boy and the parent about the situation and our reactions and the resulting outcomes. We presented a united front for the sake of our children. For the well-being of our girls we stopped [...]

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not MY daughters

Brushing your teeth should come with no bigger shock than a weird piece of roast beef stuck between your molars. When you haven’t HAD roast beef. ???? Anywaaaay. I got a bigger shock when my 8yo came to me and told me about a neighborhood boy who had pulled down his pants on the trampoline [...]

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who loves the kids?

Parents in a situation like ours have a ROUGH LIFE. There is no easy way to separate something that was never intended to be separated. We didn’t live our lives with the thought that someday we would have split it up. Parents have an incredibly hard job. Divorcing parents can make a hard job EVEN [...]

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making decisions that are hard

I’m sitting here trying to think of the “right” way to write this. I could write this in a way that would get ME all the support and make Peter look like the enemy. I could write this in a way that makes me look like a victim and make you feel sorry for for [...]

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more than beautiful

I wrote a piece at Babble about the importance of teaching my kids to appreciate the things that MAKE you beautiful. Go and read it or a unicorn loses its wings.

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not meeting the goals

We all have times when we feel less than what we should be. We yell at our kids. We fight with our spouse. We pick on our co-workers. We avoid talking to our relatives. We shirk responsibility. We feel sorry for ourselves. We wallow in the pool of pity. We kick the dog. Ok, we [...]

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