It's today. I am declaring it to be today. Right now. It's International Special Needs Kids Amnesty Day. So here's the deal: There are plenty of kids with special needs whose challenges you can easily see. You know what it means when a kid is in a wheelchair---you wouldn't expect him to get up and walk. You know what it means when a kid has the tell-tale facial features of Down Syndrome---you wouldn't expect him to do some calculus for you. But for every kid whom you recognize, there's another one---maybe more than one---who has special needs you can't easily discern, and those kids are...
You will never, ever, EVER hear me accusing Chickadee of being easy. Ever. But she is a girl, and so has stereotypically managed to be... girly. The kind of grief she causes tends to be emotional anguish, rather than, say, actual physical destruction. She doesn't make all that much noise. (Sure, the *STOMPSTOMPSLAM* routine is not exactly quiet, but in her everyday existence volume modulation is not a problem.) She is not prone to, say, flinging herself around. And then came Monkey. The joke in this house is that a herd of elephants lives in Monkey's room. Whenever there is a large crash,...
We're going on a camping trip this weekend. We planned it... oh, I don't know. Months ago. Last camping trip of the year, before we put the trailer back behind the house and cover it up and then, two weeks later, I will discover I need something from in there and have to bat my eyelashes at Otto to get him to go out back, undo the cover straps, venture into the cave-like inside, and retrieve it. We don't do as much vacationing as a family as I would like, and as the kids get older it only gets worse. Their time is limited. Rather, I should say Chickadee's time is limited. She's branching out...
One of the things the kids were most excited about when we moved to Georgia---aside from the pool, because ZOMG A POOL WE MUST BE RICH---was that they were finally going to start taking piano lessons. I can't give you a definitive answer on why we never did it before we moved, but I think it went a little something like: Sorry, we don't have the money right now; well now you're doing something else, instead; now we have the money and possibly the time but you no longer seem interested; and finally, HOORAY we have both the time and the money and you're interested but... we're about to move,...
In addition to the whirlwind that is a quick family visit (into which you feel like you really OUGHT to be able to cram a good six month's or so worth of time together, even if it's only a few days), the kids are having conferences this week at school. I love school conferences, because they represent a unique opportunity for me to embarrass my children. Oh, I kid. About the embarrassing part, anyway. I mean, if Chickadee is to be believed, I can turn anything into an opportunity to embarrass her. [Aside: One day before something at school she came upon me applying some mascara. "Why are you...
So my parents are here for a visit. That's completely awesome because they are fun people, and also because our favorite collective hobby appears to be eating. I mean, sure, yes, we also talk a lot and go do stuff and watching Monkey grow in frustration that Grandpa's sole mission on this trip isn't actually to play Legos with him 12+ hours/day, but the main reason we all get together is so that we can order approximately twenty different things from our local Chinese restaurant and then sit at the table talking about how we really overdid it, this time, and we have WAY too much food, yes,...
We have well and firmly entered the "Go away! I don't have to listen to you! You're not the boss of me! Wait, can you make me some eggs and also can I have a cuddle? God, LEAVE ME ALONE!" phase of Chickadee's life. It's infuriating magical. There's nothing quite like that special bond between mother and daughter, where they love each other so much and yet regularly ANNOY THE CRAP out of each other. Still. We do find our way to each other now and then. I don't know that the sweet moments mean as much to her as they do to me, but that's okay. Nor am I above clowning for her to get those...
I may have mentioned once or twice or twenty times that Chickadee has joined just about every possible club, group and team available to her this year, save for the ones that involve actually sports. ("I am not a sports person," she explained to me in all earnestness, and I swear I only spent a few hours trying to convince her that roller derby might be her true calling. She remains skeptical. I am SO renting Whip It for her as soon as humanly possible, though.) Most of her choices made sense to us. Academic team, math league, yoga, Yearbook... no surprises there. But then came the day that...
Today is National Coming Out Day, which is because (to lift a quote from their page): "It's the courage to come out as an active voice for LGBT equality that will result in real political and social change." Last night I used the Human Rights Campaign's handy little Facebook app to change my status to something about how I'm a straight ally to the cause, and not five minutes later I saw one of my "friends" had changed her status to say that she would not be changing her status, because she absolutely will not support people being proud of their sin, which should rightfully be "hidden in the...
