Today is Spread the Word to End the Word Day. I first wrote this piece 2 years ago and I still haven’t come up with anything better to say about this word. It continues to be used carelessly and abundantly. It is low hanging fruit for comedians, it is a one-stop insult for people who […]
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Voice
I’m sad. Recently, an exchange of words took place on Facebook, twitter, blogs, and large, national sites like The Mighty and Huffington Post. I’m sad because this is an opportunity missed. See, people with disabilities have been harnessing the power of the internet for a long time now in hopes of getting their own words […]
When You Can’t Fall Back on Down Syndrome
I think it is pretty clear that I have a somewhat zen approach to Rowenna and her disability. And I really do feel it – Ro will get where she’s going in her own time. She’s shown me that on so many occasions and I know my job as her mom is to support her […]
Down Syndrome Awareness 2015
October is Down Syndrome Awareness Month. Last year, I wrote a post with things to be aware of beyond Down syndrome itself. You can read it here. I read through the post again and went to do some fact checking before merely re-using the same post. I was hoping to need to do a major […]
Heartbreak and Lessons Learned
I toured a school for Rowenna this morning, and while I think we’ve found a good fit for next year, the failure of the current school year came careening around the corner and knocked me down. The district has been flat out wrong about a lot of things in the last few weeks. There is […]
To Be Continued
Disclaimer: Though we are choosing to advocate against a self-contained placement for Rowenna at this time, this is not a judgment on anyone who has chosen that for their child. We simply do not feel it is an appropriate placement for our daughter at this time based both on our observations at home and the […]
Privilege
We haven’t had Rowenna’s IEP meeting yet, but I want to pause here to talk about privilege for a minute. (And for those following at home… I do think things will end well after the meeting next week.) In the last week, I have become acutely aware of the amount of privilege I have when […]
Pop
Hear that? It’s the sound of my balloon bursting. Until now, we have had an amicable relationship with our school district. We felt very in sync with their suggestions for Rowenna, and we loved her placements for the last two years. We know many children who have various diagnoses, and many of them did an […]
Welcome
We’ve been doing a lot of treading water in my family these days. Rowenna’s therapy has been incredibly transformative (more in future posts) but exceptionally time-consuming. Afton has been on her own diagnostic journey, which has left us with a lot of bills and not much in the way of answers, and has a sleep […]
Open Letter to NDSC
On October 16, you sent an email to your membership asking “Are We ‘Aware’ Enough Already?” and provided a somewhat flip answer to the question. I’m not sure if your email was in response to some of the excellent blog posts written about the need to move beyond awareness (at least one of which has […]
