I found a new babysitter/ respite worker. Happy clapping. See for your average family finding a sitter might be hard enough, but we are far from average. My little one has special needs. So it was never even remotely possible that we could hire the teenager next door. Or the granny across the road. My little one would chew her up and spit her out while laughing maniacally or raging and trying to tap dance on the stove. We had a wonderful student from university for a few years. She was fabulous and grew to love our daughter as if…
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If you are a parent to a child with special needs, then odds are you are familiar with this level of exhaustion. Dog Tired. Yup, that’s me this morning. And every morning lately. But this morning, well it was epic in its bleary-eyed beauty. This morning, before I could find the Visine eye drops my charming child turned to me and said:”wow, are your eyes ever red.” And yes they were. Because I am tired, the kind of tired that comes from shivering for a week without a furnace. The kind of tired that is show week for oldest daughter,…
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Oh lovely July when we throw our school cares out the window, in more ways than one. Dear Month of June: I hate you madly. You suck the life out of me every year. My family needs a bloody vacation as my child is off the wall and the school is spazzing me out. Right now I am trying to come up with the smartest way to tell the school to quit losing my daughter. See she reacts to June by running away and leaving school and such. It’s called fight or flight. It’s pretty common with sensory…
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I am posting this bloghop here because it has been awhile and I plan to visit some new friends as a result. I have had a dull day of tedious things that are necessary. My Mom seems to be getting to a stage of life and state of health where it is no longer advisable to have her living off on her own in the city where she taught for 35 years and the place where I grew up. So we need to move her soon and that is not an easy task or one that I even want to…
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Moms are some of the savviest and most creative people I know. If necessity is the mother of all invention as the saying goes, then mothers are also the greatest inventors. Take Lisa Goodman for instance and her protective chair covers. Goodman, the single mother of a young child with autism, was looking for an item on the market that would protect furniture from those little spills children so often make when eating, drinking, crafting. When she couldn’t find what she wanted, she designed the perfect chair covers herself and so began the Oopseat. Lisa sent me a square Oopseat and…
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No Frill’s owner Brian Macdonald with Sophie Davies-Hales, mom Dana and their newly certified Autism Services Dog Crosby Tweet Meet Sophie. She has a riot of dark brown curls, cheeks as round as apples, a little brother who likes to play dressup and a big sister. Sophie also has a whole host of largely invisible special needs, and now an autism service dog that shadows her every move. Sophie was adopted as a baby by Mom Dana Davies-Hales and Tony Hales. She was three when she was diagnosed with Fetal Alcohol Neurological Developmental disorder ( a condition that falls under the umbrella term of fetal alcohol…
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Fasd camp 2009 outside London, Ontario Many London parents, professionals and educators will head to Toronto tomorrow for the first ever province-wide symposium tackling a challenging disability gaining national attention. The FASDOne symposium began with a limit of 300 parents and professionals, but demand for the training and information being offered has been so great that organizers have had to cap attendance at 425 and turn people away. A large number of participants are from the London area, many are part of a local group of experts and professionals here called the FASD ELMO (Elgin London Middlesex Oxford) network. Health Minister and…
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How can a book change your life? Well beyond the actual reading part, the educational value and the entertainment we all get from reading a book, some would argue that books can change your life. I recall having this conversation in a newsroom in a mid-sized paper where I once worked as a daily news reporter back in the mid-90s when The Celestine Prophecy was hot news and people were jumping on that bandwagon. Myself and an unnamed entertainment reporter were arguing over whether a book could change your life or not. He felt they could. I took the opposite…
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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…
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