(BIG OLD ASTERISK RIGHT HERE AT THE BEGINNING: My proximity to disability is almost negligible. I parent a child with disabilities. I do not have any disabilities myself. I only know what I can observe and what happens to me within earshot of The Baby. My hope in sharing these stories is not that you … Continue reading
Author Archives: welderbeth
The Oregon Trail
Alex and I took some time off in early May to go to Oregon. Neither of us had ever been there and we were excited to do some hiking and napping, sans children. What follows is a mish-mash of thoughts from the trip- the good bits. *** Day 1: It’s good to be small Airports … Continue reading
Bagged Milk
Does anyone else remember the Great Bagged Milk Fiasco of the early 90s? Surely, you do. If you were a part of it, you remember. Someone in the State Board of Education decided to thumb their nose at the waxed cardboard industry and copy our friendly neighbors to the North by providing bags of milk … Continue reading
Baby’s First Shave
The first time I ever had my eyebrows plucked was the night before my wedding. My bridesmaids basically sat on me while one of them used a pair of tweezers to individually yank hairs out of my face while my skin (and my mouth) screamed. I am #notafan of tweezing. After that, I did get … Continue reading
Sculpting Stalagmites
Our recent cold snap has Alex fretting (rightfully so) about frozen pipes. The Kid and I are instructed to leave cabinet doors open and faucets dripping. We have some space heaters pointed just so at pipes on exterior walls and if Alex gets up to pee in the middle of the night, he flushes the … Continue reading
“Is He Dead?”: Teaching Kids Inclusion
One of the gifts that The Baby’s developmental delays gives us is that he doesn’t care what people think about him. Once, I had him in a backpack and The Kid and I were ordering snow cones. The Baby leaned over and emptied his stomach of all the water I had just painstakingly given him. … Continue reading
My 2022 Guide to Books
My sister and I have alot of things in common. Our taste in books is not one of them. Recently, she was telling me that she wanted to read alot in 2022 and asked for my recommendations. Knowing that she liked historical fiction, I asked her if she would read a book set in historical … Continue reading
A Holy Community
I’ve been in Adult ESL for 11 years now. (That’s English as a Second Language, not Extra Sensory Perception, as I sometimes get.) I started as the front line office person for a bustling non-profit that had set up shop in the middle of the highest densely populated area of Dallas, right where all the … Continue reading
I Can’t Put It Back
We got a Christmas tree last year. Up to that point, I had avoided having a tree by using a cloth tree that I sewed that hangs on the wall. After 6 years, the Kid finally convinced me that we needed like a tree tree and not something that I whipped up on my cheap … Continue reading
Dear School Board
Many of you may know that school boards across America are being inundated with outraged parents that their children have access to a book that shows a picture of a child with two mommies (or whatever the fuck). Women are screaming at school board members about Critical Race Theory without knowing what it even really … Continue reading