(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
Category Archives: parenting
“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
Plan G- Update
So, the Baby got his g-tube placed a few months ago. As a surgery, it was pretty straightforward. He came home with the site covered in gauze so we couldn’t even see any of the…recovery process. It took a few weeks for him to get back to normal. In short…it’s been awesome. He’s still eating … Continue reading
Behold, My Sister Wife
I have several distinct memories of observing parents whose kids had nurses in the waiting room of a doctor’s office. Sometimes we would get caught on the elevator with them, other times they would make their grand entrance into the waiting room- a parent or two followed by a kid in a wheelchair with a … Continue reading
On Medicaid
Well, today the Wise family said hello to a new bed and goodbye to two of The Baby’s teeth. A few months ago, we started the laborious process of getting a SleepSafe bed approved through The Baby’s insurance because his crib had become unsafe. He was able to stand up in it and when he … Continue reading
The Honeysuckle Vine
The other morning, The Kid and I were on our morning walk with Baby and dog in tow. The dog had stopped to poop so The Baby and I paused on the sidewalk in one of the Top Three Most Interesting Yards on our street. For some reason, three artsy hippy families bought houses in … Continue reading
Girl, Interrupted
During this quarantine, I’ve been doing this app called 1 Second Everyday, where you basically create a video montage over a period of time made up of, you guessed it, a video clip of 1 second from each day. The Kid, who is a perpetual optimist and doesn’t want to think about or remember anything … Continue reading
The Ugly Tree
Well, today sucked. There’s just no way around it. The Baby’s seizure activity has increased at an alarming rate, even from Wednesday. He had three seizures during the Zoom session with his speech pathologist. We’d be singing a song and he would just lose control of his upper body and then look up at me … Continue reading
For When You Are an Imperfect Parent
You. Hey, you! Psssst, yeah, you- the dejected-looking woman with damp spit-up drying down the length of your right arm and swollen eyes from crying periodically throughout the day. Congratulations! You made it to bedtime. Take a breather, sister. Sit down, stay awhile. Let’s not mince words. Today was rough for a multitude of reasons. … Continue reading
I’m Back and I Have a Roomba
When you last heard from me, I left you with the news that whatever curse has befallen the Wise Family was slowly picking off members of my family days before Christmas. I’m happy to report that both Alex and the Kid recovered. After Christmas, we were supposed to go to my hometown to visit my … Continue reading