Parenting

July 12, 2016

Harder Than I Ever Thought It Would Be

We worked long and hard to become parents. Years of infertility filled with tests, needles, examinations, surgeries and the loss of dignity. We moved on to adoption and were again met with questions and the need to prove ourselves. But finally the day came and we welcomed a wonderful 3 year old boy to our family. We were so proud and excited to start our new life together. I was new to my job so Adam took a few weeks of parental leave while I finished up my probationary period. From all accounts, they had a great time each day just hanging out and playing and setting up a pool for Corbin.  I was so excited to be a stay at home mom,which […]
October 18, 2016

Checking In

So I haven’t blogged for several months. Honestly the summer flew by, we only got to go camping in our new pop up trailer twice and both times were unbearably hot and humid – like sit in your own sweat all day type humid. Our niece Teegan came down for several weeks and she was Corbin’s support person in the evenings. He loved having someone his age to watch movies with and she even managed to get him to go for walks. We loved it because we weren’t inundated with a million requests. He also got his beginner driving licence. Corbin also found his way onto this blog. I knew it would happen one day. I have tried to be […]
December 6, 2016

Extraordinary Needs

A woman I consider my mentor once told me that her biggest regret was not spending more time with her other kids as she was always busy with her daughter with complex medical needs. Later that same week my 5 year old son sat in the back of my van and piped in “Mom, let’s have a meeting”. I asked him why he wanted to have a meeting and he said “So me and you and Dad can be together. I know, I will bring paper and pens and you bring snacks”.  I wept silently the rest of the way to our destination. My 5 year old had figured out one of the only ways to get his parents attention […]
December 14, 2016

Advocacy is not a 4-letter word

There are times where, as the parent of a child with a disability, you will be told to fight for what your child needs. Us “special needs moms” – we tell each other “fight for him, you know him best” and “the squeaky wheel gets the grease”. People get worked up hearing other parent’s stories. At times I too have believed this way of thinking and engaged in my fair share of fights.  Last week I read a piece that spoke of being a Mama Warrior for your child with special needs and it just seared my heart.  I genuinely felt very saddened by the notion that as a whole, it is thought that parents of kids with a disability […]
January 14, 2017

A New Place to Write

I stumbled across a new site – Her View From Home – and if you click on the link it will take you to an article I wrote for the site. Please comment and share – the more unique pageviews for the next 30 days the more I get paid. Thanks in advance ?
January 21, 2017

A Journey Through Family Centred Care

A few months ago I mentioned that I gave a 1.5 hour talk at a conference. It was at the Ontario Association for Infant and Child Development (OAICD) and the topic was Our Journey: Finding Hope and Courage within Family-Centred Care. The audience was small but perfect for my first solo presentation at a conference. I received the feedback from the conference in late November but was swamped with work and home stuff and didn’t get a chance to post.   Here is what people had to say: Fantastic! Definitely valuable insight that is needed to hear Best presentation in the whole conference! I’ll definitely be checking out her blog. Moving! Absolutely fantastic that Tina would or could share her family’s […]