A Mom's Life

We all know that men are from Mars and women are from Venus. We have read books about how to successfully live with someone who's from another planet. Andy, unfortunately for me, is not from Mars nor Venus, but another planet altogether. Sometimes, I find him to be so unique that I'm sure no one else lives on this planet but him. I'm not much of a astronomer but I'm also sure that all the other planets in Andy's solar system do not orbit around the sun but instead his very unique, solitary planet, or, to be scientifically accurate, his own star. The girls and I are on the lightest planet, Planet Family, which orbits the heavy hitter, the heavy weight, the brightest of them all, the star with the strongest gravitational pull- known as Andy's Sun. I'm pretty sure that Andy's Sun thinks it's characteristics mirror the Sun that the Earth orbits -near perfect, most important, responsible for all life. (Interestingly, I learned that the Sun is middle-age...

When we received Caroline's diagnosis, Andy and I decided not to hide the information and instead chose to educate friends and family about her rare genetic condition. We hoped this information would assist others in understanding her better and selfishly, for me, I hoped it would get people off my back about how we parent her. In some cases, our openness about her disability has helped others, or at least it has allowed our community of people the opportunity to ask more questions without feeling rude or embarrassed. "Does she take any medication? "Does she attended regular school? Is she in a special education classroom or is she mainstreamed? Will she be able to go to college? What does Charlotte say about her? Will she outgrow it? She doesn't look like she has a disability so how did you know? I'd be lying if I told you that some of these questions haven't bothered me but ignorance is bliss and, when it comes to learning, no question is stupid, ...