Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Life of the atypical parent....

Hi everyone, it's been a while. I am feeling out of sorts and have been that way for a while. There has been a lot going on with both of my children and I feel like I am being pulled in a million different directions. For some reason this is just a difficult time of year in many ways. There are so many days that I feel like I could just crawl in bed and stay there, but I don't have that option. Being a parent with special needs children is difficult any way you look at it. I have had the honor to meet so many great parents, parents who will do whatever it takes to make sure their kids are getting the things they need. But, it is overwhelming and you often feel like no one could possibly appreciate what you do. So do you want to know what it's like being a parent to children with special needs? Well, here is what it's like for me anyway!
1. Get up and drag yourself out of bed, rush to make sure that everyone gets where they need to be on time, even when one child decides to take all of his clothes off at the last minute and the other is refusing to leave the house without his "bad guy" transformer and at least three Superheroes and you can't find any of them....
2. Finally get one child on the bus and get the other one in the car, get stuck in the last minute rush, try to park in disabled parking spot only to find the ONLY two spots taken by someone who DOES NOT have a disabled tag or decal, and have to get tardy slip for being one tenth of a second late.
3. On the way out the door be stopped by someone (therapist, principal, other school personnel), telling you they need to discuss something with you.
4. Come home, get online to try to research the best possible therapy for your child's situation, find the greatest thing, google it and try to find therapist in your particular area, no luck...
5. Call doctor thinking she may be able to tell you something Google didn't..... find out, yes that is available, if you want to drive two hours.
6. Grab something unhealthy for lunch and then call all of the people who are expecting you to call them back....
7. Talk on the phone for what seems like hours...
8. Glance at the clock and realize that it is almost time to go pick your child up, rush out, stop by post office or grocery store as fast as you can.
9.Fight the after school traffic, don't even bother trying for disabled parking as they are all blocked anyway....
10. Pick up child, talk to teacher, rush home in time to get other child off of bus..... OR
11.Realize that child has 4:00 appointment in location that is 30 minutes away, call someone and beg them to get other child off bus for you.
12.Rush child to appointment arriving 15 minutes late, but that's okay, you are going to have to wait two hours before he can be seen anyway, getting home around 7:00.
13. Meals, baths, bed........

I guess I'm trying to be a little funny, but that is pretty close to the truth! No I don't want pity, I just want someone to recognize that what I do is difficult. No, I don't lay at home every day in front of the television. There are about a million more things I could add in there, and it varies each day. Sometimes I have to fit a appointment in for myself or for my oldest son as well. Some days I have meetings that I like to go to, some days the phone rings non-stop. It varies!! God bless all the parents who are out there quietly taking care of their children and fighting for them in a million different ways! We'll go into the fighting part in another blog! They are worth every minute! :)