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When They Exceed Your Expectations
My children have both given me hundreds of proud moments. They both excel at something. My eldest is bright and talented and pretty much every year from the time she started school she has won awards. Student of the month. Check. A’s in every subject. Check. Friends. Check. She is a beautiful smart and creative overachiever. My youngest child is now six. She is beautiful and smart and incredibly athletic and she also has special needs. I love her madly and we agonized for years over the choice of school for her. We kept her at a great private preschool as long as possible. She did her junior and senior kindergarten…
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My Christmas Card To Premier Dalton McGuinty
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My 411 Mabel’s Labels Review and Giveaway Open to Canada and US.
My 411 wristbands from Mabel’s Labels: Good for All, Excellent for Kids With Special Needs It is a moment, hardly longer than the blink of an eye, and your child disappears from your line of sight. Your stomach sinks, breath catches in your throat, heart freezes and your mind races. Where is she? Did someone take her? Is she hiding? You tell yourself it will be okay, but newspaper headlines are all you can see or think and you fly into panic mode, or maybe survival mode. Every parent on the planet, if they have a child who is old enough to walk, or run, has had one of these heart-stopping…
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Weekend Warrior post
So I was browsing around the other day and I found this excellent topic Weekend Warrior, started by the lovely blogger at Adoption of Jane. The idea is to educate others about special needs. So this is my post from the weekend – better late than never. This is my daughter Ainsley. She’s 6, beautiful, daring and athletic. She says Arm of Woir for Armoire and “No I willn’t” and that still makes me chuckle. She also was adopted at 5 months old and she’d been prenatally exposed to a number of substances, including alcohol and variours drugs. She has several diagnoses that are lasting as a result of choices…
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Children’s Mental Health Week: When Little People Have Big Worries
Imagine waking up paralyzed with fear over the simple fact that it is Monday. You get to school late as usual and slip into class, stomach in knots, head hurting, perhaps you have Tourrette’s, an invisible mental health disorder which causes you to tic, perhaps you are anxious or depressed. Maybe you have ADHD. In Canada one in five children suffer from a mental health disorder ranging from anxiety to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder to bipolar depression. That’s about 2 million children and adolescents in Canada. This week is Children’s Mental Health Week. Last weekend thriftymomma was fortunate to take part in the Parents For Children’s Mental Health conference in Mississauga. The…
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Grade One and Registration Day
Today I registered my fiver for grade one. It’s a monumental occasion for many. It’s a big deal for me and for her. Everyone who has a child with special needs will get what I mean when I say that my heart is in my throat and my fingers are crossed as I tentatively prepare to ship her off to public school. I have had a big knot in my stomach since I left the school this morning. And to think there’s another six months before she starts. It’s not that I don’t have faith in our public schools – my older child attends one and does quite nicely. My…
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Payback, Press Conferences and Special Needs Parenting
Many days special needs parenting is a challenging proposition. It’s weighing do I go to work out of town for the day and Some of you may know I went to Toronto for a speaking thing yesterday at a press conference. Sometimes I do this when someone calls me to advocate for an issue I care about then I do go out of my way to attend press conferences. That meant my husband took my kids to and from school and took the day off work. I went to the event – not my first rodeo. Press conferences and speaking is a regular thing a couple times a year. But,…
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09-09-09
On the ninth hour of the ninth day of the ninth month of 2009 we gathered in London’s Victoria Park for a pregnant pause to raise awareness regarding FASD Day. Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, is an invisible neurological disability, affecting an estimated 300,000 Canadians. The numbers are staggering, but the people affected are the real story. For instance Jack, 8, adopted at 4, struggles with impulse control issues, violent behaviours, sensory issues and learning disabilities. He struggles in school. In grade one poorly supported by the home school he had moved to he was suspended six times in as many weeks. Then he was diagnosed with FASD and frankly things only got more difficult.…
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Forgetful Frankie Children’s Book and FASD DAY Interview
First and foremost, a small disclaimer. Those of you who know me and read me know that I am a Mom of a little girl with FASD fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. So I may be the tiniest bit biased about this one but when I first saw hint of a book for children about FASD I was overjoyed. Anyone who parents a child with FASD struggles with what to tell them and when to tell them about their disability. This book is a way to help parents do that. So what follows here is my interview with Jill Bobula, author of this excellent new book, Forgetful Frankie, part of the WE…
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Expert Panel on Infertility and Adoption
Last week’s release of the highly anticipated report from the Expert Panel on Infertility and Adoption was well worth the wait to many of us labouring in the trenches as adoptive parents and advocates. While much of the public debate around the report, dubbed Raising Expectations, was clearly focused on the fact that the panel recommends the Ontario government’s health plan pay for infertility treatments like in vitro fertilization, we in the adoption community were celebrating. Many of us spent hours consulting on this report whether by phone, in written form or in person appearing before the panel. The Adoption Council of Ontario, the North American Council on Adoptable Children, The Adoption…