The blur...

Raising kids can feel like a blur. You wake up in the morning next to a tiny infant snuggling with you, blink, he's a teenager and three inches taller than you. It's realizing the blur that makes me sit quietly and breathe in a million little moments, taking a mental snapshot of the truly extraordinary mundane. 


In the blur, there is a marriage too. I married my best friend and the only person I want to ride this awesome roller coaster with. 
It would be unfair though to pretend that through our adventures, there hasn't been those times we were at risk of losing touch with each other. It's so easy, through the blur, to become roommates, distant. Statistics tell us, that the deck is slightly stacked against marriage. Those same numbers will declare a marriage that involves kids with special needs, at an even greater risk.  


Seeing, and feeling this, means that we go out of our way to make sure that we still stay in touch with the friendship and the connection that made us. 


We have moved mountains, (and damaged credit cards) to have weekends away. Date nights, are part of the monthly budget, even if it means a walk at the river and coffee in a mug from home. However, there is one thing we rarely get an opportunity to do...be in our own house, alone. 
This past week, we suddenly fell into an opportunity where the kids were all at assorted sleepovers for the night. We love our kids, but I'm so not going to pretend that we didn't help them get out. 

We didn't stay home the whole time. Hit some balls at the driving range, which is always good for a laugh. I can either hit the ball 150+ yards or half a foot. 

The house feels different without kids. It's a little bit empty, and a little bit exciting. We enjoyed the quiet, and missed the chaos. 
Sure we took advantage of the empty house, but more importantly, we talked. We checked in, when it would have been just as easy to check out.

After a little dinner, a walk and talk at the river.

How do you hold on to those relationships that are important to you? How do you 'get away' in your own home?

Pulling clover...

We have been day tripping and following our bliss wherever possible for the last couple of weeks.  Today though, today was different.
It was a quieter sort of day.

Today, I decided to try to tend to the front garden. It gets attention twice a year, whether it needs it or not. While pulling weeds, I flashed back to sitting in the grass as a kid with my mom, sisters, and neighbour. We would just sit in the front yard and talk while we pulled out the clover. I remember learning that clover winds it's way through the grass with an intricate network of stems and that it was like a puzzle, tracing those stems back to the source.

Suddenly, it was all about the clover. Tracking the stems, and working back to the centre hub. The teenager came outside to offer help and quickly found his way down to the ground as well, learning clover removal techniques.
As we sat there, following the labyrinth, we talked. We talked about all those things that parents and kids should talk about. We talked about school, friends, girls and his plans for life.
He is growing so fast, and in his mind, he is ready to be grown. His dad and I find ourselves struggling with the balancing act that is allowing freedom, while still ensuring that he doesn't try to fast forward through childhood.
We are children for such a short time, and adults for so long.

As we were pulling and talking a neighbour walked past with her pup. She assessed our work and her first words were, "That's not going to help. You are going to pull that out and it's just going to all grow back."
Smiling, I told her that, "It's not the clover that matters."
Today, it was time spent with my little man that measured my success.
The front yard will just have to wait it's turn.

Of labels and walls...

Pssst! Hey! Over here. Can we talk?

So, this past week, a celebrity in the music world, made some crappy comments to a fan seemingly because the fan mouthed off to him. He told the fan that "he looked autistic" and then went on to say, "I don't want no special ed kids on my time line follow some body else."

Okay, so first off, I would just hate to be a publicist in this day and age. With all the ways for their clients to communicate via social media, I imagine many publicists have a permanent dent in their foreheads from the repetitive 'face-palms' they must do daily. 

Second, who says that? Really, are there actually people that think it's okay to say things like this? Wait, of course there are. See the thing is, that this isn't the first, nor will it be the last time that someone with a mass twitter/facebook/instagram following is going to misspeak. 

After all, regardless of your station in life, we are all human. We can recognize that at some point each of us has used our words to inadvertently or intentionally disparage others. So while I was frustrated and disappointed in the words I read, I could accept that the person speaking them made a mistake and needed to be educated. 

When this tweet was published, right out of the gate, Hollie Robinson Peete wrote an eloquent, well thought out, open letter to the offender. Over instagram and twitter, parents of autistic children sent him photos of their kids tagging #thisiswhatautismlookslike and #whatautismlookslike. I was one of those people. For the most part, this response was in the spirit of education and understanding. However, there was also a response of outrage and anger, which ironically echoed the outrage and anger that the tweet was born from. As the days wore on, with no public apology forthcoming, the anger that bubbled under the surface out of the gate started to rise and words like "thug" "ghetto" and "ignorant" became louder than educate, advocate, and communicate. Unfortunately, it was this anger that was heard and it was the anger, the "outrage" that was reported on. It seems the media has learned long ago, that their audience feeds on the negative aspects of a story first. Although lacking in spiritual nutrition, a headline like, "Parents outraged at 50 cent tweet" garners a lot more traffic than a headline that reads, "Parents of Autistic children patiently advocate for an apology." 

Yes, it sucks that medical diagnosis' are still used in derogatory ways, either as insults, or for laughs. It is discouraging that so many people don't seem to understand what autism truly is, and what it looks like both physically and in behaviour. It is frustrating that there seems to be a collective voice coming from the mainstream media that desires to compartmentalize and simplify what is a complex neurological condition. This misunderstanding only succeeds in further pandering and underestimating a population of truly exceptional human beings. Humans beings with gifts that often go unseen because a medical diagnosis, a label, meant to facilitate understanding, is twisted in a negatively slanted definition. It is this collective stereotype that feeds the miseducation of our population and breeds these derogatory slams.

It is all frustrating, and so the voices that start out patiently advocating get louder. These voices start getting angry, they start calling names. If the offence starts with labels being used derogatorily, how can it be resolved by continuing to use different labels derogatorily? An angry response not only serves to produce a knee-jerk apology from the offender, it also inflames a population of bystanders, polarizing the response down to those defending the offender and those defending the offended. 

With a delivered apology, the media has moved on from this story. Outrage, demanded satisfaction and got it. If we are to follow this lead, there is nothing more to discuss. However, I argue, it is the aftermath of feelings that we should all be talking about. The heavy focus on the initial offence blinds us from the lessons in the fall-out. When the story is dead, an autopsy on it is where the real learning begins, because this situation will happen time and time again. Some of the players will change, but the pattern is still there. The celebrity will eventually apologize, because, genuine or not, they have to. The world is watching. 

In the moment of misspoken quotes, the stakes are not the hearts and minds of those that misspeak. The stakes are the impressions left on the hearts and minds of the bystanders. The stakes are in teaching the bystanders how to respond for our children when we are no longer able to. 

If we yell instead of advocate, all that is heard is a collective noise, of anger. All that we teach is to respond with noise and anger. If we speak with kindness, and with a desire to educate; we can be heard. Perhaps, without 'outrage' we will not get that publicly demanded apology. However, when given the choice between an apology coerced by outrage, or an opportunity to educate a few more hearts and minds, I choose education. 

Mahatma Gandhi said, "Be the change you want to see in the world." The change I must be is the person that seeks to foster understanding and communication, one heart at a time, in the place where anger once spoke. I must teach that the purpose of a label is for understanding, and not for mudslinging or laughs. If we don't want a medical diagnosis to define our children, if we don't want a label to quantify their existence, then we ourselves must recognize that all labels, when used derogatorily are equally offensive. By defining a person based on their negative actions alone, we cease to find a solution to the problem and instead build a wall. 

As human beings, we all are complex, and name calling is beneath the dialog we should aspire to. 

I strive to 'be the change'. I strive to educate and advocate with patience and understanding. It might be exhausting to do it time and time again, but at one point I benefited from patient education.  

Maya Angelou said, "When you know better, you do better." As a parent of children with special needs, I do know better, and I must do better. 

In the battle for the hearts and minds of the bystanders, I have a lot of loud voices to drown out with my one little voice. I don't have a network behind me. I don't have a large social media following. However, if my little voice, joins the voices of several other patient, teaching, advocates, we can be heard.

Always learning....patience

This week one of our kids has come back to visit us. Six years ago, he lived here for a short time, but left a mark on our family. Six years ago, when we got the call about him needing a place to stay, the man on the other end was solemn. He explained that there was a young man from Japan coming and that he needed to tell us that he had cerebral palsy. He wanted to know if that caused a problem for us having him stay here.

The question stunned me. I asked, "Is there something I should be aware of? Do I need to make sure that my home is accessible? I don't understand why this is a problem." He alluded to the fact that we were not the first family he spoke to and I stopped him and said, "We would love to have him stay with us."

During his first visit, he was off at school learning a lot, but there was a little time to play. One night we went to a BBQ at our friends and played badminton. I will never forget watching Keisuke play. He moved like a butterfly chasing that birdie, but he stung like a bee when he kicked our butts, time and time again.

This week having him back we were so excited to catch up. He was excited as his English was so much better and we have had some really great talks. The other day, we got to talking about disabilities, and I thought we were going to have a conversation about appearances and assumptions, but once again, one of my kids taught me something.

I asked him about what it was like to have a visible disability, whether it was frustrating when people assumed that his mental abilities were affected as well. For Keisuke, motor control is a challenge. This affects his walk, his movements and his speech. On more than one occasion, I was witness to someone assuming that his cognitive abilities were equal to his motor abilities. Having a little man with an invisible disability, who has trouble with social and emotional regulation, I have been witness to someone struggle to understand why a seemingly normal looking child was behaving in a way that did not mesh with his physical appearance. Having another child with tourettes, I have also bore witness to misunderstanding and assumptions about what it is, and what it should look like.

However, Keisuke's answer surprised me and made me think. He explained that he came to North America to go to school because here, people with disabilities get help, and are schooled with their peers. He explained that at home, children with disabilities are schooled separately regardless of their abilities and are most often not socialized with their peers. He explained that because of this, many people in Japan do not get to learn about people with disabilities. There is no chance for fostering understanding, because there is no opportunity to misunderstand. He went on to tell me that he prefers it here, where he might be misunderstood at first, but he has the opportunity to educate others and learn for himself.

It is a truth though. We can get all up in arms about the things that people do or say when confronted by a disability. We can shut people down, or get touchy that people say the wrong thing. We can get indignant and frustrated and even angry. We can, but none of that opens communication. None of those responses advocate or educate. Keisuke, reminded me that patience in the face of misunderstanding, fosters understanding. He reminded me that as a mom to children with differences, I would rather someone say the wrong thing to me, and open a dialogue, than say nothing and remain in the dark.

So I choose patience in the face of misunderstanding. I recognize that I understand, because children born to me dictated that I must learn. I recognize that it is my job to patiently educate and advocate. I accept that anger and resentment, breeds disconnect and discord. I choose patience in the face of misunderstanding, because I hope that it means I raise my children to do the same, to approach the world with the same grace, courage and intelligence as this amazing young man has shown me.

Also, I must confess, I love that he still calls me mom.

68 days of bliss...

It's summer vacation. The kids are home and yes, I am one of those annoying moms who loves having her kids home for the summer. No, they are not perfect angels that play delightfully at all times. Yes, they do fight with each other; with me; with the dog; with the fly that dares to land too close to their cereal.

However, I look past all that and I am happy. Grateful to have them home. I relish those times when they are lost in playing with each other, laughing and creating memories that I know they will hold onto into their adult years. Those delicious mornings of rolling to a slow start, everyone in their PJ's late into the morning, deciding at the last minute to hit the beach, the river, or hide in the house and pretend we are camping in the backyard.

These are the days of no school lunches, no wrangling for a spot in the school parking lot. This is a time free from IEP meetings, homework and all the hubbub of the school year. This is a time of quiet, and family, when we close up shop a little and just soak it all in.

Today started with the knowledge of many changes for the coming school year. Next year there would be kindergarten for a little girl, new staff, a little boy entering intermediate classes. It seems that most people don't like change, even fear change. For me though, I think I've learned that I refuse to classify change as good or bad. Change just is.

There are 68 days between now and the next school year. You can do a lot of living and loving in 68 days, and I refuse to let any anxiety about change, rob me of one second of my 68 days of bliss. Arriving in the back field to get Graysen, everyone was looking up at the sun in awe. I looked up to see what they were checking out, and there was a rainbow circling the sun. Someone joked that it was a sign of the coming apocalypse. Meanwhile, to me, I saw an omen of good to come. Some people see scary, and some people see magic and some people I suppose, just see a rainbow formed by ice crystals way high up in the atmosphere. It's all about your perspective, or more so, the perspective you choose.

So, tonight, sitting on our back deck, I felt totally relaxed, and our kids seemed totally relaxed. Usually, it takes us all a couple of weeks to fall into a routine, to really chill and yet we were all just in it. I wondered what changed.

Maybe the kids picked up on our mood, and it set the tone for the whole family. Who knows? I heard a saying once, "Never worry for more than five minutes about things you can not change." I looked everywhere to try to find out again where it was from to attribute it to someone, but the message is one to hold onto. Sure, it's not an easy feat to master, but it seems to be, that not worrying about that which you can not change, gets easier with practice.

Moving forward

Over the years, I have found happiness in learning that, the past should always be a warm and fond memory, but we should never choose to live there. All the great adventures in my life involve moving forward, embracing the unknown. Over the years, it has been the times that the road has taken an unexpected turn, that have yielded opportunity for the greatest growth, and the most beauty.

Six months ago, a dear friend who is, actually more like my fourth sister, told me that they needed an adventure that they were moving. I naturally freaked out (quietly) for a couple of days, and then I embraced it with everything I have. I embraced it, because, always, always, always, the most amazing things in our life, have started with the feeling of, "wait, this isn't supposed to happen like this."

The more I thought about it, the more I realized, why wouldn't they do this? The world is big, life is short and there are adventures to be had.

Our first kids (both boys) were born nine days apart, and along with another dear friend, we have raised our children together, as siblings in an extended family.

There is a lot of amazing in watching little humans grow, when you strip away all the things that everyone tells you to worry about. That is the gift that came with these women. The ability to enjoy all the little seconds of our children growing up, because together, we could always remind each other that the big picture was so much more than, bottle vs breast and all the other polarizations of motherhood. This ability to maintain perspective, and focus on the bigger picture, was an anchor in the early days of parenting. More recently though, as life has thrown us all one curveball after another, that perspective has become a lifeline; a direct route to joy, through all the chaos.

When I think about it, that is really the simplicity of a lasting relationship; growing together, in differences, in challenges, in laughter and tears. Growing together, through everything.

When you find people that hold your children in their heart, safe; when they would go to the wall for them as they would their own little humans; when they see you children as they truly are; you keep those people close to you. Together you start your village and that village can take on most anything that life's roller coaster throws at you.

Years ago, the roller coaster got a little rough for my friend, and together, we discovered the beauty of taking breakables to the dump and throwing them in the bin. If I think about it on a deep level, it was probably healing to be in control of something shattering, instead of having to try to hold everything together as it all falls apart around you. However, at the time, deep was not our friend, so we went more with the whole, "Oooooooo! Things go crash! Make big noise! Funny! Take that world." Cue, hysterical laughter.

There was something cleansing about it all and that became our secret code. We knew when one of us said they needed a trip to the dump to smash some things that it was time for a little laughter.

Naturally, a highlight of the whole move was the promise of Auntie wanting to smash her dishes.
So, on moving day we did and we let Lorelei play too. It was a wonderful release of all the stress of trying to sell their house, and as an added bonus, it meant that she HAD to get new dishes for their next place. It also kicked off the laughter and the celebration and set the tone for the day. We were gonna smash those dishes and laugh. We were going to make this fun! We were going to celebrate and again, show our kids how to do hard, how to look forward. How to choose joy, and happiness and excitement over sadness, fear and holding back.

Disclaimer **While it looks dangerous, no little humans or fur babies were harmed in the making of this photo, and yes, clean up was a breeze.

Meanwhile, Lorelei would like us to move because "Mom, when it's time for us to move, can we smash our plates too?" 


When the big kids got home, they were sad that they missed out on the plate smashing. While it was weird that the house was empty, it was nothing a little sliding down the stairs on a mattress couldn't cure.

In that last day, we filled that house with laughter and silliness. Soon enough, that feeling carried forward and there was this communal feeling of being done with those walls, of wanting to pull away from this place, together.  We were looking forward, excited about being a part of  new adventure with our friends.

Only the address has changed. Four walls and a postal code do not dictate family, relationships or love.

In our need to move forward, the next day we planned to visit our friends at their temporary home. There was dinner, laughter, adventure and memories.

There was swimming in an awesome pool, warming up in a hot tub.

There was playtime, and there was a magical gazebo with neighbours and a roaring fire and s'mores.

Blood lines were blurred as kids crawled on Aunts and Uncles laps, and snuggled surrogate grandparents. People who had just met that day, sat around and shared a laugh.

Walking ten feet outside the gazebo and the singing of the frogs start to drown out the laughter. Standing outside, conversations disappear until it's all just a blur of happy chatter, backed up by the crackle of the fire.

Kids are fading fast after the days excitement and swallows looked down from the rafters, hoping for treats and trasures left behind.

Somone ran a line and a TV from their place so we could all watch a man walk across Niagra falls on a tightrope, but really that was a far second to the glow of just being together. Moving forward, one foot in front of the other, making memories, soaking in laughter and teaching the kids that physical distance was the only thing that changed.

****How do you move forward through the roller coaster of life? What village have you built in your life with family you chose?

Just be......

A quick post tonight. My wish list for the people that I love....

Go with love more, stop worrying about all the little things that you think are so big.

You have today, stop wasting your life in judgement, in the past, in worrying about the future.

You have today, live it.

When a child comes to you to play and you say yes, you are living today.

Laugh more.

Talk more about beauty and less about politics.

Stop judging what you think is wrong with the world, with today’s society and start learning to find the beauty in it, because you are not going to change people and you live your life in today so ride the wave.

For the love of all things holy, just be, for God’s sake.

If there is one thing I have been blessed to learn in my short life to date, it is that there is little that we can control and the more you try to steer life and hold on with a death grip, the more real living slips away.

Don’t spend time worrying on that which you can not change, it ages you and makes you ugly.

Spend time loving the people you love, knowing them, connecting with them.

Don’t waste time talking about the trivial things, about the negative. Spend time sharing what you find beautiful in this world, what you remember fondly.

This is my wish- do it now.

Live, let live and love.