Stick Figure Woman: A Guest Post by Kate Twohig

Neighbors play a huge role in your life, don't they? The everydayness of the relationship quickly puts you in the realm of family.

My kitty-corner neighbor Kate Twohig has given me flour over the fence, saving my banana bread. We commiserate regularly about the stray cats too fond of our backyards. We watch in pain as our kids swim in sand at our neighborhood park. We're in this thing called parenthood together, and it's all the more fun that way.

Smart and witty, and a marvelous storyteller, Kate is a joy to know and call a neighbor and friend. And today, she's sharing a reflective and humorous piece with all of us, which I know you'll enjoy.

Meet Kate!

Kate pressed pause on her career to be a stay-at-home mom. It's a strange sensation (I can relate), going from investing so much of your time and energy into work, to being on the homefront 24/7.

A member of my neighborhood writing group (Yes, lucky me! I have one of those!), Kate recently shared "Stick Figure Woman" for our review and critique. The second I heard it, I knew I wanted to share it with you. Luckily, she agreed! 

In Kate's words...

My kids and I recently spent a week visiting my parents in Wisconsin. The day we travelled home, the weather was lousy. It was chilly, the sky was dark gray, and there were intermittent rain showers all morning. Both kids were pretty sleepy and quiet from the constant activity of the previous week. I knew they were super tired when I was able to listen to my music channel without any backlash on our three-hour car ride home.

As we were crossing the state border from Wisconsin into Illinois, a big SUV passed my left side and pulled into the lane in front of me. I noticed the sticker decal on the back window right away. It was the stick figure family. I saw regular stick figure dad. Stick figure mom was holding a briefcase. Stick figure older boy had a soccer ball. Stick figure younger girl was wearing a tutu. There was even a stick figure dog to help complete the family. Of course I noticed the similarities to my family - a dad, mom, older boy, younger girl and dog. But our family’s interests and hobbies are very different.

When I first saw the sticker, I have to admit I rolled my eyes. But with the quiet car and the constant whir of the wheels against the smooth highway pavement, my mind went into daydream mode. If I had to choose a stick figure to represent myself, what would it be? No ideas seemed to pop up right away. Perhaps ten years ago, I would have been the briefcase stick figure woman. I never carried a briefcase to work, but I understand symbolism for a career woman when I see it.

I worked for about fifteen years in marketing. The commute and the hours were long, and before having kids my life was all about my job. I really identified myself with my career, and I was proud to work for such a great firm, but then I had kids and my feelings slowly started to change. Long, demanding work hours aren’t so great when you are trying to raise a family.

After my second child was born, I quit my job to become a stay-at-home mom. I will fully admit that the transition was way harder than I thought it would be. Caring for a newborn is rewarding, but as a new mom, all of your energy goes into caring for that baby and keeping it happy and alive. I also have an older boy (who was a toddler at the time my daughter was born), so at the end of the day there wasn’t much “me” time. When you become a mom, you quickly realize it’s no longer just about you. I often felt like I was losing a sense of myself, but I think I was too busy and tired to contemplate the topic very much.

Seeing the stick figure decal sent me into a crazy journey of thought. How do I identify myself? Well, I guess I’m not just one thing but many: daughter, sister, aunt, wife, cousin, friend. But those are relationships. The people in my life help define me, but they only tell a little bit of my story. I guess I don’t have one major hobby or talent that could tell my entire story. In other words, I don’t have my “briefcase” to display to the world. Instead, I have a lot of things I like to dabble with: gardening, reading, writing, art projects, walking my dog and cooking (as long as my kids are not in the kitchen asking me when dinner will be ready every three minutes).

After contemplating this topic for way too long, I came to the realization that my stick figure would have to be a mom. It’s my full-time job—one that is not always easy but is very rewarding. The difficult part would be capturing the essence of my motherhood experience in one picture.

My kids are currently 7 and 4, and they are slowly learning to do more for themselves. But obviously they still rely on me quite a bit, especially when it comes to food. Some days I feel like I am a short order cook and dishwasher. I’ll make breakfast, wash dishes, fix snacks throughout the day, make lunch, wash dishes, get drinks for the kids multiple times, fix dinner, wash the dishes and pour myself a drink at the end of the day. Is there a stick figure woman with her head in the refrigerator shouting out snack ideas to her kids?

Sometimes I have to play referee, especially now that it’s summer and both kids are home with each other every.single.day. I get to hear both sides of their story in the heat of the fight and I often have no idea how to pick a side. Sometimes I randomly pick a side and sometimes I make them work it out. Most of the time I have no idea how to choose the winner and loser but I act like I know what I’m doing. The kids have not caught on to my game yet. Picture a stick figure mom blowing her whistle as loud as she can to scare her children into silence.

My stick figure mom plays nurse when the kids are sick. She’s also a cleaning lady but who really wants to glorify house cleaning? She’s a teacher who helps the kids with their homework and answers about one hundred questions a day. There are really too many parental tasks to mention. When you are a parent, you wear many hats. I’m no different from anyone else trying to raise their children the best they can.

Towards the end of my trip, I realized there isn’t one picture that can encapsulate who I am. Right now, I’m a stay-at-home mom but in a couple of years I will join the work force again. Perhaps I will identify myself as a briefcase lady in the future but I like having a lot of interests and hobbies. I don’t want to pigeon-hole myself into just one role. Yes, I will always be a mom but as my children grow older, I hope to cultivate a rich life full of relationships, activities and interests.

It’s wonderful if you or your family have passions for certain hobbies or careers, but I’m going to stick with my mediocre dabbling in many interests. I will never ever ever get a bumper sticker or decal for my car, but if I had to have a stick figure family, my entire back window would be covered because I can’t chose just one thing for myself or my family.

Back in the Saddle: A Guest Post by Lori Heath

The roommate pairing process for your freshman year of college is a real roll of the dice. As an out-of-state student, who knew not a soul at Mizzou, I prayed and prayed that my roommate could be a true friend.

The match was a perfect one. I was paired with Lori - a friendly, outgoing girl from North Carolina. We connected instantly, sharing a love of writing, drawing, film and music. But otherwise, we are completely opposite. Lori is an energetic, funny extrovert with accents and comedy bits to spare. I'm a reserved, introspective introvert who can be an extrovert for about two hours at a time... three hours max!

Lori and I remain dear, dear friends today. (If I'm going to walk 9 miles across Manhattan and Brooklyn in a single day, it will be with this beautiful, adventurous spirit.) Lori gives those in her circle a powerful, loyal kind of love that I'm blessed to know. I suppose you could say that Lori has a heart the size of the animals that she calls family members and confidants.

Much like me and my picture book pursuits, Lori has returned to a childhood passion that lights her up and gives her tremendous fulfillment: riding horses. Here's a lovely piece that she wrote on the topic, which I hope you enjoy!

In Lori's words...

As busy adults, it’s easy to long for the simpler days of childhood. There’s a reason there are shirts and coffee mugs that say “Adulting is Hard” because let’s face it, it is. When I was a child, one of my very favorite things to do was to ride horses. People often ask me when I first started riding, and honestly, it’s hard for me to ever remember a time when I didn’t.

I grew up in a busy suburban neighborhood, but a few miles down the road from where I lived there was an old barn where people boarded their horses. I remember eyeballing the horses from the backseat of my parents’ car and innocently squealing out “HORSE!!!!” as we drove by, which is ironically something that my youngest daughter, now 2, does all the time as well. My mom finally gave in to my incessant requests to stop and see these beautiful animals, and from there on out, I was hooked. I wanted to be near those big, majestic creatures. 

Horses have a certain draw about them that only horse people can feel. Imagine a fresh pie baking and only a handful of people in a crowd can smell it. Like the scent of a dessert wafting through the air, I caught the horse bug by way of magic that comes directly into the heart of a horse-lover when they first catch glimpse of a horse.

My entire childhood was spent riding horses.  Many people grow up with horses and for some, it’s even in their family’s blood, profession or livelihood. For me, my mom had enjoyed horses as a girl, but never rode in adulthood. Her parents loved horses and had an annual Kentucky Derby Party at their house for several years, but we were definitely “city folks” and the closest my family got to a horse was sitting on the couch watching the racehorses cross the finish line at Church Hill Downs. Looking at me, they probably thought there was a reason the expression “horse crazy” existed. It was like I caught a bug none of the other members of my family had, and man did I have it bad! 

Horses became a hobby, a passion, and an escape into my imagination when I was growing up. A lot of the time I had to pretend my bicycle was a horse, but growing up in the city, you do what you have to do! When I was lucky, my weekends were spent at barns where my mom would drop me off and pay for me to go on a 2-hour trail ride with a group of other people. The slow rides often bored me to tears, so my favorite thing to do was get in the back of the line and hold my horse back until everyone got far ahead of me and then I’d gallop to catch up. I did this again and again, and it always seemed to baffle the trail boss leading the group, when we’d get back to the barn and my horse would be the only one lathered in sweat!

My mom constantly tried to enable my requests to ride. A few trail rides here and there in a Western saddle, a trip out of town where we’d pass a barn and I’d end up taking a lesson and learning to jump on a stubborn little pony. Then one day when I was 13, we passed a barn with elegant “long-necked horses” that turned out to be American Saddlebreds. A few introductions and commutes to this barn later, and I was showing American Saddlebreds on the weekends in flat-saddleseat saddles in high-stepping fast action show classes all over the state of North Carolina and Virginia.

So for me, when people ask, "What kind of riding do you do?" to me that’s like asking, "What kind of food do you eat?" If you’re starving, you don’t demand one type of food, and to me that’s what it was like with horses. I would ride bareback, Western, English, Saddleseat or Huntseat, and for the first 20-years of my life, that’s pretty much exactly what I did.

Now fast forward to when I met my husband when I was 21. Even though I was a city girl, I definitely fell for a country boy. A few years later, when we were married and living in Memphis, one day my husband looked at me and asked, “Want to move to the country?” I had never lived in the country, so he might as well have been asking me if I wanted to go to the moon. As I sat deliberating the question, he sealed the deal by saying, “We could get horses!”

That was 10 years ago, and now when I look out the windows of my house and gaze into my backyard, there are indeed horses. People find it hard to believe that a city girl like me would just pack up and move to the country for something as simple as “horses,” but it’s true. I’ve learned so much about myself and these beautiful animals by taking care of them and keeping them on our property for the past decade.

There is a stark contrast between showing up to ride at a horse show or being dropped off at a barn on a Saturday for a trail ride, to caring for horses 12 months a year and through four seasons when they’re in your backyard! From throwing hay in the fall to breaking ice in the trough in winter, to days like today when I come in the house post ride, mid-day in July, drenched in sweat. There’s a toll that comes with caring for horses, and the only reason anyone would ever take on something so demanding would have to be because they love it so much.

For me riding is love. When I ride, I am immersed in only what I am doing in that moment. I’m not thinking about work, about the daily stressors of life, or anything else, only my ride. The same way an artist loses themselves in the act of painting or a singer in a burst of song, when I ride, I am free. I am somewhere else, and I am where I need to be all at the same time. I heard a saying once, “You lose yourself in what you love, and you find yourself there too.” That’s how I feel when I ride. The noise of the outside world becomes silent, and all I feel is what is going on between me and my horse.

When I became a mother, I was curious if my children would want to ride. My oldest daughter cracks me up because she likes riding for different reasons than I do. Let’s just say, I don’t think she smells that magical pie baking; I just think she wants to hang out in the kitchen. This girl loves people more than horses, and when we go to horse shows, she is more intent on gallivanting around the grounds with her friends and making the parents laugh than she is getting on her horse some days. Did I mention she is 7? The future is going to be fun! Honestly though, I am so glad I have this common bond with my children and that we are sharing something they will enjoy for the rest of their lives.

Even though my oldest daughter rides for different reasons than I do, it thrills me to see her enjoying horses. I was happy to introduce her to riding because of what it teaches to any child or person that learns to ride, regardless of how much they love horses. The skills gleaned riding a horse will cross over into all areas of life in the best of ways. Confidence, communication, patience, hard-work, endurance and trust. A trainer once told me when I was a child to never forget that horseback riders have a very special gift. They can communicate with another species without words or language. No matter what a horse and rider do together, whether it's jump a fence, rope a cow, round a barrel or move on command, these animals follow a language that isn’t spoken in words. To me, that was a powerful lesson that I wanted to impart on my children.

The other thing I knew my children would learn from riding was hard work. From lifting saddles, to achieving balance, to learning to get back up and try again, any rider from any discipline of riding can relate. Riding is not for the faint of heart. It’s a sweaty, gritty, treacherous sport, and there is nothing pretty about the behind-the-scenes work that goes into caring for horses. Yet there’s such a reward, because riding teaches a give and take, a mutual respect, a trust, and an ability to recalculate if the first approach doesn’t work. These life lessons are ones I wanted to impart onto my children, and they are lessons I relearn every time I go for a ride.

Today when I pull into our driveway and see our horses grazing peacefully on our property, I know moving to the country was part of a larger plan to continue doing something that I love and to teach this love to my children. When I hear my youngest daughter scream “HORSE!!!” and as I watch my oldest daughter hone her skills, work the rodeo crowd with a smile on her face, and develop the confidence to go faster, do better, and improve in her horse-related accomplishments, I know these beautiful creatures are still working their magic the way they’ve worked their magic for countless years on countless other people. I will continue to feel a joy when I ride and will always believe that a day spent in the saddle is never wasted, and there is always something new to learn and love when I’m near a horse.

Ode to My Minivan: A Guest Post by Heather Klaus

By the time Friday hits - even on a shortened work week like this one - we're all ready for a good dose of commonsense and humor. Preferably together. Amiright?

That's what you'll get in today's guest blog post by my dear friend Heather Klaus, pictured here with her handsome men:

Heather and I meet up monthly for Write Club, weekly for grill-and-chill, and almost daily for park outings that shave minutes off the brutal 4-to-5 p.m. timeframe before dad gets home.

Heather has a STRONG side hustle (arguably a full-time hustle) as a dance instructor. Even at 7 months pregnant with Child #3, she still rocks the studio three days a week. Plus many weekends. And still smiles. And laughs that amazing Heather laugh. 

The Schulte family adores the Klaus Haus. We share many commonalities (MIZ-ZOU... A love of the Happels...), and now we can add Chrysler Town & Country ownership to the list. 

Enjoy my fab friend's take on taking the minivan plunge:

In Heather's words:

Tim and I just purchased our very first minivan, and although I have received a little flak from a few friends, I have decided that I am not even one iota ashamed of how much I love it. Yes, I fought the stigma just like many suburban moms—those of us who hide in SUVs, choosing to believe that the gaggle of children following us into Trader Joe's doesn't already give away our secret soccer-mom life.

But seeing as we are adding another little person to our family of four in August, I finally felt like I could hold my head up high and purchase this sliding-door little slice of heaven.

What is it that holds so many back from the dreaded minivan? Wouldn't you like to prevent your 3-year-old brute frat-boy-in-training from cranking his door open and into the Mercedes parked next to you? Am I really going to fold down the seat 14 times a day when my daughter needs to crawl into the “back-back?” How many times have you tried to shimmy the infant pumpkin seat into your car when some blockhead parks on top of you at Target? Do I even mention gas consumption? Why do we fight the minivan stigma so?

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I blame marketing. Somehow, somewhere, we have been brainwashed to believe that if we sell out and purchase this vehicle (that actually totally fits our needs and potty training/carpooling stage of life) that we are throwing in the towel on all things fashionable and sexy and telling the world loud and clear that we want to live forever in grey sweat pants and messy buns. That we have, in fact, given up.

I vehemently disagree. I think buying this car (that I might mention is pimped out with heated seats, heated steering wheel, back-up camera, DVD screen and remote start) makes me pretty fly. My kids have never been happier to have the freedom of opening and closing their door with a simple push of a button. I am already dreaming of all the supplies/accoutrement we can stuff in the van on vacations and trips to see family.

Big wheel, bike trailer, tent, sand toys, entire bag of black sandals because you can't make a decision? No problem! Just let me stow this seat. Extra kid need a ride to dance? Yep lovie, I've got a spot for you AND your tutu. Leather seats for whomever spills their juice (or other bodily function). Check. Captains chairs to keep children from playing “I'm not touching you” or “Mom, she's on my side!” for seven hours on your way to find warm weather? Got 'em.

I have even gone so far as to say “my van is pretty dope.” And I stand by that, dang it. (I may have already have shown my “age” by using the word “dope.”) I AM A SUBURBAN MOTHER, for heavens sakes, and I am kissing 40! The happiness this car brings me from clicking a button when it's raining and having my little people jump in without getting totally soaked is dope. While I may not be super sexy and fashionable in my maternity jeans, I have not given up, and feel like maybe, just maybe, I might even be hitting my stride.

Minivans, to me, you are the new little black dress—which I might add looks mighty fine on us 30-something suburban moms.

Opting Out & Leaning In: A Guest Post by Betsy Osman

You are in for such a treat! I'm so pleased to share a guest piece by Betsy Osman. For those of you who don't know Betsy, I am certain you'll enjoy the perspective of this insightful, funny, inspirational mom and writer. Meet Betsy! 

Betsy married my stand-in brother Aaron Osman. (I was lacking in that department, as the middle of three girls.) Aaron's sister, Sarah, was my childhood bestie. I spent years under the Osman eaves: Admiring Jim's rose bushes, listening to Vicki on the piano, playing cabbage patch dolls, sliding head-first down the carpeted stairs, dressing up poor Molly the basset hound.

Fast forward 30-ish years, and I'm lucky to call Aaron's wife Betsy a friend and Instagram pen pal. Our girls are close in age, and we share many of the same hilarities and hurdles. Here's the lovely Osman family of Mt. Zion, Ill.

Below you'll find Betsy's take on opting out (of the traditional workforce) to be a Stay at Home Mom, then leaning in again, when the time was right. Had me in laughter and tears! 

In Betsy's words:

A little over a year ago, I made the decision to leave my full-time job and try my hand at being a Stay at Home Mom. I was worn down - tired of marshaling out all my resources and carrying the heavy, guilted weight that came from missing out on my kids' everydayness. I longed to be able to apply my creative energy to my family; to make each day less about my “To Do” list, and more about my “Do, too!” list.

So I took the off-ramp, directed toward home.

The months that followed were … lifey. Busy. Happy. Hard. Exhausting. Freeing. I loved and loathed the pace of home life. Some days I appreciated my husband for allowing me to have this time in life. Other days I completely resented how easy things seemed for him.

I watched the girls grow and change. And over our long days together, I came to enjoy them in new ways. They didn’t always get the best version of me, but they always got me. For everything. Every question, every special event, every field trip, every lost tooth, every nightmare. I was witness to each of those moments.

Over those months, I struggled with new ways to define my own value. I wasn’t meeting huge professional goals and deadlines. I wasn’t building endowment funds or capital campaigns. I was building humans. In my professional life, my successes were seen and acknowledged. At home, my forward-momentum was usually anonymous. Overlooked and underrated. And the pay sucked.

One day I was talking with a girlfriend, confessing my fear that I wasn’t living a value-fueled life. My years of study and education and professional accomplishment – what was it all worth? I’d worn yoga pants three days in a row, spent an hour researching “coffee filter snowflake projects,” and had just literally burst into tears watching Dumbo’s mama be sent to circus jail. I didn’t need a university degree for this work.

“It matters, right?” I asked my girlfriend, swallowing hard over the lump in my throat. “My kids will remember these days and that I’d made them the priority, right? That’s where the value is, right?”

She hugged me tight.

“Betsy, you don’t need to assign where your value lies,” she replied. “That idea is fickle. And false. Our value as women and mothers and human beings is inherent. We don’t need credentials or a title or even a witness to our hard work. We’re valuable. Hard stop. End of story.”

Hard stop. End of story. And the beginning of a new way of thinking.

While fear, anxiety and self-doubt threaten to rob women of our joy no matter where our work is happening, I have come to realize that our value isn’t tied up in what or even where. It’s tied up in who.

In the end, you are the valuable person doing the work, instead of a person doing valuable work.

My season at home is soon coming to an end. I’ve just accepted a new marketing position and am so looking forward to re-engaging my off-ramped professional self. I’ll be taking with me all kinds of new talent I’ve cultivated during my time at home. Multi-tasking, encouraging otherwise unwilling individuals, patience, and ninja-level coffee filter snowflake project googling skills.

And huge handfuls of humility.

I’ve learned much about how it feels to sit on both sides of the fence: Opting out and Leaning in. And whether I’m wearing yoga pants or high heels, I’m leaning in to the acceptance that our value lies simply in who we are.

I hope you see yourself in that idea, too.

Almost Mother's Day: A Guest Post by Colleen Arturi

In honor of MOTHER'S DAY, there will be two blog posts this week!

  • First, a guest post from my dear friend Colleen Arturi (below)
  • And later this week, a post from me on triaging "crises" on the homefront

Hope you enjoy these great insights from Colleen, and be sure to come on back later this week for some Schulte girl comic relief! 

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MOTHER'S DAY: PART 1

I met my friend Colleen (then Wilson, now Arturi) in 2001. We were studying abroad as part of the Missouri-London program during our junior year of college, back when Coldplay and H&M were fresh out-the-gate, and foot-and-mouth disease was running rampant across all of England - preventing us from eating beef for four months (for fear of brain-curdling side effects) and forcing us to stay inside the tour bus while driving past Stonehenge. Not tiny Stonehenge, the real one. 

Colleen and I were flatmates on Nevern Place in the Earl's Court neighborhood of London. We will never forget those days:

Our experience was the BEST: Exploring an amazing world city, walking to South Kensington for class at Imperial College, commuting via tube to media internships, traveling across England on weekly cultural excursions, and clubbing to house music like it was our job. It kinda was.

Our flat was the WORST: Trickling water pressure, a space-saving laundry machine that (in theory) both washed and dried clothes, two bedrooms for six girls, and a sick living room couch that we sat on as an absolute last resort.

Ah, the memories!! 

Today, Colleen and I both live in Chicagoland, lucky me! She is one of my best besties. Here we are celebrating her birthday at a great little sushi place in Oak Park.

Colleen is the kind of friend who goes into the trenches with you, lifts you up, and reminds you who you are, all-the-while inspiring you to dream big dreams. I love her and her family endlessly. Just can't get enough time with Colleen, her husband, Jon, and their sweet son Hobie.

I'm also super proud of Colleen for starting her own business! She is the founder of The Story Shoppe, a branding boutique for small businesses and startups. See what I mean about dreaming big? 

Colleen and I have made half-a-lifetime of memories together, but we also share a similar momma experience: Having a first-born child with special needs. I hope you enjoy this special MOTHER'S DAY week post: Colleen's warm words of advice for moms (and dads!) walking the special needs walk.

In Colleen's words: 

My son Hobie, age 18 months, was diagnosed at six weeks of age with profound unilateral hearing loss and a condition called Auditory Neuropathy. What does this mean? He is almost completely deaf in one ear. The sound he does hear in his left ear is distorted. Like radio static. To hear what this sounds like, check out this simulation.

Think about it like this: Imagine setting up your stereo system in mono, using just one speaker, with no surround sound. That’s kind of how Hobie hears.

If you are sitting right in front of him, and even up to six feet away, he can hear you very well. But if you are behind him or shouting to him from another room (“Stop pulling the dog’s tail, please!”), he might not hear you at all, or not very well. I like to joke that he’s not much different from every other child in that respect.

Here is my son at his first ABR test (Auditory Brainstem Response). The test uses a special computer to measure the way his hearing nerve responds to different sounds.

Here is my son at his first ABR test (Auditory Brainstem Response). The test uses a special computer to measure the way his hearing nerve responds to different sounds.

We don’t know a lot about what he actually hears right now, mainly because he is too young to tell us. I mean, the kid is still working on saying banana, so he can’t really be like, “Hey mom, it’s difficult for me to hear you when you ask me what I want for dinner from the kitchen.”

If your child has been diagnosed with a special need of any kind, it can be overwhelming and isolating at times, but it can also be really, really cool and inspiring at others.

Here are 7 simple things I’ve learned as a new mom (operative word being new!) to help you along the way:

1. Find Your People

One of the first things I did when my son was diagnosed with hearing loss was jump on Facebook. I actually wish the audiologist who diagnosed my son would have told me that, because it has been one of the greatest sources of information and strength out there. Parents from all over the world can connect and relate to each other’s journey.

I also was connected (through our audiologist, thank you!) to a community for kids with hearing loss called Guide by Your Side. They were very helpful in giving me the names and contact info of real parents in the area who knew specific things about what Otolaryngologists to seek out, what schools/programs could be good for my son, etc. Most had school-aged children, and it was EXTREMELY inspiring to hear stories about their kids doing things that kids with typical hearing do.

2. Therapy is Play

At our first therapy session, the developmental therapist whipped out a bag of toys. I was like, HMMM HOW IS THIS RELEVANT TO MY SON’S GROWTH, LADY? Then I realized that play really is how babies and kids learn about the world. I am not sure what I was expecting -- fancy flashcards, maybe? (Yeah, I know --- what’s he going to do with flashcards but put them in his mouth and get papercuts… oops.)

There will be lots of fancy gadgets and tests and clinics on your journey, but from what I can tell, therapy sessions are meant to meet your child where he or she is. That means guiding therapy around play the child is interested in and taking cues from life to make things relevant. Also, quite awesomely, it often also means a lot of therapy can take place in your home. YAY!

3. Celebrate All the Time

We already do this naturally as parents, but it bears repeating: Marvel at every little thing they achieve. Every. Little. Thing. Whether your child is using a utensil more adeptly, or they are doing better at making eye contact, or maybe they are even mimicking you for the first time. Whatever it is, just stop to WOW over it, for yourself and for your child. Appreciate the small stuff, because well, it’s all small stuff.

4. Advocate

This is hard. I don’t know about you, but I often times have problems speaking up for myself. I am still learning how to be an advocate for my own needs, so at the beginning especially it was sometimes difficult to even know when and where I should be advocating for my son. One key thing I will have to do as he gets older is to always make sure a speaker - say at storytime -  is on his typical hearing side, so we can make sure he is hearing as much as possible.

Here in Illinois, we have a great resource called Early Intervention that will help get your child lined up with necessary therapy services from birth through three years of age. There are similar programs in most states. Please do yourself a favor and check for services in your area. And be sure to ask lots of questions of whomever you’re interacting with, as you might learn about more services that are available to you.

(Special shout out here to our therapists through Early Intervention and Child’s Voice. They have taught me so much about advocacy, hearing loss and therapies for my son!)

5. Balance Trade Offs

Winter in Chicago brings the worst stuff - slush, gray skies and germs everywhere! My son is on his fifth cold since the beginning of the year (which means I am about to start my fifth cold of the year too, amirite parents?) Recently, we learned Hobie has fluid in his ears, which could but hopefully won’t, damage long-term hearing in his good ear if it sticks around too long.

I have never given my son antibiotics but lo and behold, his otolaryngologist suggested it may help get rid of the fluid. The day this happened, I was served an article on Facebook that talked about how antibiotics can potentially affect the gut microbiome in a not great way, making it paradoxically tougher for them to fight infections in the long run. GREAT. Now I have to choose between potentially damaging my son’s hearing and potentially ruining his immunity FOREVER? Thank you, Internet for ABSOLUTELY NOTHING but guilt.

It’s decisions like these that all of us parents have to face every day. Instead of thinking about these decisions as judgments on me as a parent and the good mom/bad mom complex, lately I’ve been trying to think like an economist: It’s all about tradeoffs. Because in life, there really is no such thing as the right decision. It’s about making the best decision possible with the information you have at the time. That’s it. And when you are choosing ANYTHING in life over another thing, you are simply weighing outcomes against one another. The path you choose is not inherently good or bad, it’s just a path. (Cue chill yogi chimes.)

6. Focus on the Long Game

Another parent came up to me the other day and asked “Hey - is your son’s hearing ok now?” LIKE WHAT IS HE TALKING ABOUT. Oh yes, dude, his deafness just poofed away!

Then I realized he was just trying to be polite and ask about my child. He really didn’t know better and wanted to earnestly ask about my kid, though *eee* it did come out kinda wrong. Raising a kid, and especially raising a kid with special needs, forces you to look at the long term. I am pretty sure the super cute activity table I bought him will not have any bearing on his success later in life. But I do know that being consistently supportive of him will help him.

So keep the long game in mind when distracted by new toys, or even new technologies, when it comes to your kiddo’s special need or needs. Yes, a new surgery may help your child, but no, it will not be the magic ticket to success. You know what will help them succeed the most? YOU. (Well, ok and them. Kiddos are totally amazing and resilient.)

7. Keep it Positive

Ignore the Haters. That’s including that itty-bitty-s*itty committee inside your head. The voice that says “You need to do more.” Maybe it’s because I was a cheerleader in a previous life, or maybe like, everyone does this in their inner monologue… But whenever I am feeling down on myself or worrying too much, I think to myself, “You are already everything your child needs.”

I like to call myself a recovering perfectionist. And I really have my son to thank for that. I don’t know why it took me so long to realize this, but expectations and reality have a funny way of being incredibly far apart. No matter what kind of parent you are, do your best to chuck those Pintrest-y looking notions of parental perfection out the door. Real life looks sooo much different than the Internet, and it’s also sooo much more fun. Do not be too hard on yourself and celebrate those little parenting wins for yourself, too! You. Are. Amazing. (Especially if you’re a regular reader of Anitra’s blog.)

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Thank you to Anitra for being a wonderful friend since forever (college seems eons ago) and for allowing me to contribute to her fantastic website. I am so honored to know such a wonderful person, mother and thinker. I love you, woman! And if any of you moms out there have tips for special needs parents, please say so in the comments.

Colleen Arturi loves cheese and her puppies Bill Murray and Wizard, and will dance to literally any type of music. She is the founder of The Story Shoppe, a branding boutique for small businesses and startups. Learn more at www.thestoryshoppe.com.

And final note from me, Anitra here! If you are interested in reading about ways to help a special needs momma, hop over to this post HERE, which I did earlier in the year. See you again soon!

Trust & Surrender: A Guest Post by Mary Birkhauser

As many of you know, our Elsa was born full-term and right on time. We had no idea she wasn't a typically developing baby girl until the very minute she was born. 

Chromosome, chromosome... That's all we heard, as she was taken from my arms.

The delivery room hushed and everything changed. From that moment forward, it was obvious that our lives as parents weren't going to be straight-forward or "normal." At least not in a way we could have expected.

Since learning of Elsa's WHS diagnosis, I've met lots of parents of children with special needs. We all share a moment like this, where reality shifted forever. But the heartache and worry of such a specific marker in time wasn't something I could share with a friend or family member who was in my life before learning the gravity of Elsa's syndrome. 

Until one day, my dear friend (and former cube mate) Mary Birkhauser shared that her son also would be on his own unique path. Here's her story - Jack's story - and the major lessons she's learned along the way:

Everything was normal, until it wasn't...

During my 20-week ultrasound, my presumably normal pregnancy took a wildly unexpected turn. That's when my first-born son was diagnosed with a benign arachnoid cyst in his brain.

Benign arachnoid cyst. I miss the days when those words were so foreign that we forgot them shortly after leaving the doctor's office. Benign. At least that had a positive connotation. The rest of it might as well have been Greek. All we knew was that our baby's brain anatomy wasn't normal. No one could tell us what it meant for our sweet boy and his future.

In that moment, it was overwhelmingly apparent how little control I had over my life, and my son's. While it wasn't the first time my husband and I had come to this realization, Jack's story cemented it. We had a few choices to make: Either trust that God's plan for Jack's life is good, or question it. Either believe that God has a specific plan for Jack (brain cyst included), or become consumed with worry and fear daily.

And, at the foundation of these choices, was a core question: Do we believe that God loves Jack, regardless of what his life may hold? The answer was a resounding YES.

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Keeping faith through uncertainty

At just two weeks old, our newborn baby underwent brain surgery. Jack spent 12 days in the NICU. There were unexpected complications, and it was incredibly scary. Yet, fast-forward 2.5 years and our sweet Jack has developed incredibly normally. His life is seemingly unchanged by all of this, thus far, and our bright and cheerful son shows no delay among his peers.

Despite this amazing news, being Jack's parents is still a continual lesson in trusting God's plans. His surgery reduced the cyst's size but didn't remove it altogether. His brain anatomy will always be very abnormal. Every time we have a follow-up with the neurosurgeon, or if Jack doesn't hit a typical milestone right on time, we can either choose to worry or choose to trust.

When we step back and look at the big picture, we realize that "normal" would have been a lot easier. Yet, we wouldn't trade the journey of Jack's life for any amount of comfort. To us, and to many others who know him, Jack stands as a living testimony of answered prayers, enduring faith and God's promises fulfilled.

Mary Birkhauser lives in suburban Chicago with her husband and two sons.