-
It’s ok if your wait is a little louder than ours.
Our son has been asking every couple of days to go to our local train park. We venture out rarely these days due to the risk in our state. This weekend the weather was beautiful, and we decided to take both kids. We went to the ticket counter in the gift shop and bought our tickets. Nixon watched as another boy, around two, touched the trains in the package. Nixon carefully picked a couple up and lined them back up in their place. I was holding Nora in my arms, and she was watching the couple in front of us. Nick bought our tickets, and we headed out the double…
-
To the special needs parents who came before us.
When we roll into a new year in January or minds can drift to looking back at our choices over the last year and our goals for change in the new year. There is no doubt that 2020 will forever be one of the years we all can reflect on. In 2020 we became special needs parents and discovered both our children carried the medical diagnosis, autism spectrum disorder. When our children are diagnosed, we often hear that the words in no way changed who they are. The words on the paper provided a road to services and support they need. The words are only one small part of who…
-
Autism Spectrum Disorder lives close to the spark.
When a person walks through a hard experience filled with overflowing emotions we often turn to the philosophies of the world. What are we doing here? What is the meaning of all of this? And sometimes crawling into the dark pit of why me? We sat down to watch the new Pixar movie “Soul” this weekend. The characters in the movie discussed the very complex concept of how do you find your spark in this world. I thought as we watch the character catch a tiny leaf falling off of a tree how I have watched my son have that exact moment over and over. And how often the beauty…
-
Our shining star baby girl, would we be special needs parents for a second time?
Tuesday night, December 15, I sat with our beautiful daughter and read her a book before bed. As I started to read, the tears hit my cheek. I snuggled our last baby, our little girl, a little closer. I choked through each word of the book. Her in her two piece pajamas, listening to the children’s story, soaking up the tears falling from my check. She snuggled in, not noticing the tears or my shaky voice. I knew what we were facing the next day, looming in the air a second diagnosis day. This tiny baby had already given me so much. Nora was born into a mountain of worry.…
-
I have learned to appreciate, in our unique parenting journey, to soak in the rare and swift moments when things feel the way I imagined parenting would
Earlier this week, Nixon woke up around 5:00 a.m. crying. As I picked him up out of his bed, his long legs were freezing. The temperature in Phoenix has dropped, and he loves to sleep with just an overnight pull-up. He has four blankets on his bed but usually ends up sleeping on top of them. I carried him into our room, and he snuggled under the covers. This has happened a handful of times since he was a baby. Once he is awake, he does not go back to sleep. But this morning, he snuggled in, put his head in my arms, and went back to sleep. I felt…
-
It felt cloudy at times under our autism umbrella
Thinking back on the last year, I have been reflecting on how hard it was to fill out so many development boxes with no, how I felt defeated as a Mother and lingered in feelings that I somehow had failed my firstborn, beautiful baby boy. That under this new autism umbrella, we would be lost in the heavy rain of the neurotypical world’s expectations. I was ashamed of all the things I didn’t know. Missing all the tools, I would later gain that we’re not given to me early on. I did not understand that our son was trying to communicate how his system processed input from the outside world…
-
What does intimacy mean, the changing intimacy seasons
What does intimacy mean? The definition of intimacy, closeness, a cozy private atmosphere. I have often been thinking about intimacy. How, over time, intimacy changes. Like small seasons of closeness. It changes in romantic relationships, it changes in friendship, and it changes with our children. When I think of my relationships with my husband, Nick, our intimacy has never been the flashy weekend getaways with thousands of Instagram worthy pictures. It hasn’t been an intimacy found over date night monthly box subscriptions sent to our house, although I would be open to trying it. At the beginning of our relationship, my husband drove a Chevy Blazer. He loved that car.…
-
He felt safe behind the closed door of the night to open up his heart.
After a long day of parenting, some of my favorite moments come on the slow walk to bed. The soft, quiet moments are shared when the world is shut out with closed doors. Bedtime routines have changed over time as the children have grown. Starting with small baby cuddles swaddled in new parent unconditional love. Then to bedtime stories and soft lullabies in the dark. When our children are still small enough to hold, in footy pajamas, tiny heads snuggled into the crook of my neck. I still have a little time left here with my daughter Nora who has let me know she no longer wants me to sing…
-
This year, the pandemic year.
Since March, I can remember very few times we have been out as a family of four. This weekend we went to the train park. Before we went, I had a fleeting thought that I didn’t know if Nora had ever been on a slide. She has been home most of the time since March. This thought hit me with a little ping. I have had many fleeting moments over the past year of sadness for all the lost firsts. I find it is more of the simple things that hit me than the big ones. I have mentioned to my husband in passing that it makes me feel extremely…
-
Tommorow will be a new day
Every couple of months I wake up wondering if I can navigate through my day. I wake up tired, not the no sleep tired, or the tried where you know you did too much activity, but a tired that is deep to my core. I felt deep tiredness in my early 20’s from staying up late, filling my soul with live music over drinks. I felt a deep tiredness in my late 20’s of 14 hour study sessions for months at a time to take the bar exam. I felt a deep tiredness in my early 30’s of late night feedings, pumping sessions, and comforting tiny babies. This tiredness is…