I’ve been wanting – no, needing – to write a blog post about current life happenings for a few weeks now. But I kept putting it off, because…where do I start? Year so far {RECAP}: I started out 2017 with lots of goals, a few (failed) resolutions, and plans to lose 30 pounds. Instead, I had … [Read more…]
I’m so glad that January is almost over, aren’t you? Honestly, though, it’s been a good month for our family, considering it was January. We started off the year with a beautiful 8-or-so inches of snow. A real treat for North Carolina. If you like snow. This means that what was supposed to be our … [Read more…]
Christmas is just around the corner. With the upcoming Advent season comes a great opportunity for parents to teach their small children the Christmas story. Songs, books, Advent calendars, and more…the ways truly are endless. There’s no right or wrong way to teach the Christmas story. The important thing is that our children capture, even … [Read more…]
The last time you could have found our family eating out at a sit-down restaurant was right before we moved from Kentucky, when Ezra was two-and-a-half years old. Since then, if it doesn’t have a play place, we just don’t go. Active boys, preschool boys, special needs boys – well, let’s just say that they mix … [Read more…]
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away… our family had three male birthdays in the course of sixteen days and we decided to celebrate the occasions with a big FAMILY-SIZED Star Wars Party! We kept the party family-only because of the special needs we have in our family. We didn’t want either … [Read more…]
Hi Baby. You don’t really understand, but today is your FIRST BIRTHDAY. We made it! And of course, we are celebrating in style by waking up at 5 AM! Little Brother, you have taught me so much this year. This past year has radically transformed the way I view the world, and I owe that … [Read more…]
At the beginning of the summer, I wrote a blog post about Summer Survival. In that post, I talked about the pull of the romanticized notion of letting kids be bored during the summer – the idyllic 1970s summer that people these days seem so fond of trying to recreate. I also talked about how … [Read more…]
“The boys are both still asleep! You wanna get up and have morning coffee with me?” My sleepy brain tries to wrap itself around the paradoxical words as I roll over in bed to view my half-dressed husband grinning tenderly at me. “No. I just need more sleep. I was up a lot with the … [Read more…]
As I write this, I am in the backseat of our minivan on the way home from our family’s 4th of July Summer vacation. For now, everyone is behaving. My heart is full, but I am unsure quite where to begin. Every patriotic holiday evokes emotion for us, but Independence Day is the happiest. It is … [Read more…]
My house is quiet. My mother-in-law has taken Ezra away to get a 3-day head start on our family vacation and Little Brother is sleeping. The only sound is the air conditioning, the quiet whrrrr of my computer, and my husband in the next room talking with gaming buddies. Ah, this is the life… Scratch … [Read more…]
I’ll get to formula and FODMAPS in a second, but before y’all go up in arms at my use of foul language on my faith-based blog, I have to explain: We play this game in the car sometimes. It’s a game I learned from my mother. It’s played like this: One person thinks of an item and … [Read more…]
This post is an unplanned followup to my post, What I’m doing differently with my second baby (based on 5 years of parenting a special needs first baby). As babies grow, we learn more about how to raise them. With this post, I’d like to share more realizations I’ve had about Little Brother, Ezra, myself, and parenting in … [Read more…]
It was our one-month wedding anniversary the day that I wrecked my Chevy Malibu. I was about to turn right onto a busier street when I saw a pickup coming fast. I panicked and pressed the gas instead of the brake. Bam. I hadn’t had the car for long. My parents had bought it for me … [Read more…]
I will view self care as a priority rather than an indulgence. I will get better at asking for help. With these resolutions, I entered the New Year. I was tired but happy, and felt like our family was going in a good direction. But then it happened: the same thing that happens every January. … [Read more…]
They say that hindsight is 20-20. As I look back to Ezra’s babyhood, I now see that his neurological differences were apparent from day 1. He hated to sleep and thus fought it with a vengeance, needed intense sensory stimulation (especially proprioception), lacked self-soothing capabilities, and struggled with independence. This is who he was born … [Read more…]
