To be honest, I'm not 100% sure. I attended evoconference (#evoconf on Twitter) this week for work. We were sponsors of the conference but I also attended as a fledgling blogger. Two producers from Oprah spoke in one of the keynotes and said one of the questions they ask of the guests is 'What is your intent?'. They emphasized the importance of intent in the space of social media and life in general.
So, what is my intent? I've been pondering it a lot as I enjoyed the beautiful scenery in Park City, UT and as I traveled home again. At a higher level it is to live a positive life, love those around me, do my best as a mother, do good in general, and be a positive contributor to society. As it relates to blogging, I really am not sure.
I'm a Mommy. I'm a WOHM. I'm the mother of a special needs child. I'm a wife. I'm a daughter. I'm a sister. I'm an employer. Some of these jobs I do better than others. I am human, I cannot be everything to everyone. I have a lot of opportunity areas in life. There are many places I feel I should be doing more but I haven't quite figured out how to get there.
Back to blogging. What is my intent? I believe my intent is to talk about some of the challenges of all of these things. Some days I suspect my blog will drift more to the side of raising a special needs child and Auditory Processing Disorder. Then again, I'm not sure K has been fully diagnosed so making it an APD blog seems narrow.
So, for now, I soak in the words and thoughts shared at EVO and just keep typing. I found the closing keynote by Brene Brown (#brenebrown and www.brenebrown.com) and Karen Walrond (#chookooloonks and www.chookooloonks.com) to be incredibly inspiring. The concepts of authenticity and embracing your different are hard ones for many women to come to terms with on a day to day basis. We so struggle with being everything to everyone and we simply cannot live up to such standards.
So, for now, I'm a mother, a wife, a daughter, an employee, a blogger, a housekeeper, and an employer. I will do my best and be who I am in those endeavors.
I will also be looking forward to Brene and Karen's new books this fall.
Thanks Evo Conference for the food for thought, the good times, and the beautiful scenery.
Monday, June 28, 2010
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Absolute Chaos!
Home improvement projects are painful. There is absolutely no way around it. If you vacate during the work, you miss errors and mistakes and come home at a point too late. If you live in the house during it the disruption of routine, the noise, the mess, the clutter...OH MY!
We have wanted hardwood floors since we bought our house in early 2005. We are an atopic family. Dust allergies abounding, not to mention allergies to pretty much everything green. So, hardwoods are perfect. We decided to go ahead and do it this spring. We picked our floor, got the estimates and work started last Monday.
Calamity after calamity. Cracked boards, gauges, albino board next to dark board in prominent place. Nothing life threatening but certainly a PITA! The contractor is holding up their end of the deal but it is still painful.
So, do I really want to design and build the house of my dreams? If 1,200 sq. ft. of hardwood is this painful what would a whole house be...not sure I have it in me.
M and I are traveling to Park City this week without the kids so I can attend the Evo Conference (#evoconf www.evoconference.com) for work. It should be a nice getaway and it should significantly help this pitiful blog ;-) Shortly thereafter we will go to see my brother for the first time in about 7 years (I've seen him but not been to his house). I suspect our house will be chaotic for a while.
K had his orientation for Fast ForWord this week and did well with it. He starts July 6th...2 hours a day, 5 days a week, for 6 weeks. Fingers crossed that it jump starts him for 1st grade.
We have wanted hardwood floors since we bought our house in early 2005. We are an atopic family. Dust allergies abounding, not to mention allergies to pretty much everything green. So, hardwoods are perfect. We decided to go ahead and do it this spring. We picked our floor, got the estimates and work started last Monday.
Calamity after calamity. Cracked boards, gauges, albino board next to dark board in prominent place. Nothing life threatening but certainly a PITA! The contractor is holding up their end of the deal but it is still painful.
So, do I really want to design and build the house of my dreams? If 1,200 sq. ft. of hardwood is this painful what would a whole house be...not sure I have it in me.
M and I are traveling to Park City this week without the kids so I can attend the Evo Conference (#evoconf www.evoconference.com) for work. It should be a nice getaway and it should significantly help this pitiful blog ;-) Shortly thereafter we will go to see my brother for the first time in about 7 years (I've seen him but not been to his house). I suspect our house will be chaotic for a while.
K had his orientation for Fast ForWord this week and did well with it. He starts July 6th...2 hours a day, 5 days a week, for 6 weeks. Fingers crossed that it jump starts him for 1st grade.
Monday, June 7, 2010
It is hard to not make comparisons
So, K and T are 4 years and 2 days apart age-wise. I've talked a lot about K and his challenges. We didn't really get started on figuring all of it out until he was 4 which was when we moved him from a daycare to the parochial pre-school. What a journey it has been since.
T is a blossoming 2 year old. He is learning and developing and essentially bursting at the seams. It makes me realize what we missed with K. I cannot go back and change the past but given early intervention is the key, it does make me want to bang my head against the wall quite a bit.
T is delayed in teething but seemingly not so on anything else. He can count to 12, he can count down from 10 (to blastoff), he can recognize about 10 letters, he easily recognize shapes in the world (as opposed to identifying on a shape puzzle). His words are exploding, his reasoning is impressive, and to top it off his physical capabilities are rapidly approaching K's.
M and I work hard to give the boys their individual time to allow each of them to shine in the way that is most relevant to them. It is hard but appreciated. K shines so much when we spend the one-on-one time and he isn't competing. You can tell that he can tell that he is different than T. It breaks my heart but it is only the first of many times that he will learn this and have to cope. So, we work on developing his confidence and skills.
I worry about what is to come. Kids are cruel. I worry about accomodations at school causing him to be picked on by peers. Hopefully his extrovert nature will help overcome that. We will cross the bridge when we come to it. He was pretty down by the end of the school year 'I can't know how to do that' was creeping back into his lexicon. It breaks a mother's heart but at the same time strengthens the resolve to provide tools.
He is thriving in camp right now. He came home beaming about the fish he caught today. He is red faced and absolutely exhausted by the end of the day. Saturday he took a 2 hour nap for the first time in ages. Our hope is to restore his confidence over the summer with fun activities that help push his core muscles and gross motor not to mention help with APD by forcing bilateral involvement. Fast ForWord should help establish more solid footing before school starts on a more academic level.
On another note, a colleague lost her son far too early. It has made me hug and hold my boys even more closely. Please keep the family of Henry Louis Granju in your thoughts and prayers. You can read more on his mother's blog http://mamapundit.com/ Some of the reason I fear how cruel kids are is that I could see K wanting to fit in and falling in with the wrong crowd.
My initial consult with the Child Psych regarding K is in late June. Stay tuned.
T is a blossoming 2 year old. He is learning and developing and essentially bursting at the seams. It makes me realize what we missed with K. I cannot go back and change the past but given early intervention is the key, it does make me want to bang my head against the wall quite a bit.
T is delayed in teething but seemingly not so on anything else. He can count to 12, he can count down from 10 (to blastoff), he can recognize about 10 letters, he easily recognize shapes in the world (as opposed to identifying on a shape puzzle). His words are exploding, his reasoning is impressive, and to top it off his physical capabilities are rapidly approaching K's.
M and I work hard to give the boys their individual time to allow each of them to shine in the way that is most relevant to them. It is hard but appreciated. K shines so much when we spend the one-on-one time and he isn't competing. You can tell that he can tell that he is different than T. It breaks my heart but it is only the first of many times that he will learn this and have to cope. So, we work on developing his confidence and skills.
I worry about what is to come. Kids are cruel. I worry about accomodations at school causing him to be picked on by peers. Hopefully his extrovert nature will help overcome that. We will cross the bridge when we come to it. He was pretty down by the end of the school year 'I can't know how to do that' was creeping back into his lexicon. It breaks a mother's heart but at the same time strengthens the resolve to provide tools.
He is thriving in camp right now. He came home beaming about the fish he caught today. He is red faced and absolutely exhausted by the end of the day. Saturday he took a 2 hour nap for the first time in ages. Our hope is to restore his confidence over the summer with fun activities that help push his core muscles and gross motor not to mention help with APD by forcing bilateral involvement. Fast ForWord should help establish more solid footing before school starts on a more academic level.
On another note, a colleague lost her son far too early. It has made me hug and hold my boys even more closely. Please keep the family of Henry Louis Granju in your thoughts and prayers. You can read more on his mother's blog http://mamapundit.com/ Some of the reason I fear how cruel kids are is that I could see K wanting to fit in and falling in with the wrong crowd.
My initial consult with the Child Psych regarding K is in late June. Stay tuned.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Really? No, really? Corn?
I am positively reeling. Sucker punch to the gut, or baseball bat type reeling. If I may say so, that it saying something. I'm talking, that if it were here, I could polish off a whole package of Oreos, or a quart of ice cream. I'm stunned, I'm panicked, I'm absolutely reeling.
I have been an allergy parent for 6 years. My 6 year old K has had no less than 4 rounds of skin prick testing and 4 rounds of RAST blood work. He had his most recent round of skin testing in April and they happened to include corn.
He tested positive. The lovely nurse practitioner said it could be a false positive due to high pollen season. I shrugged and went along happily. She wanted to rule it out by including it on the RAST panel they were running because K's peanut skin test was negative.
The bloodwork came back yesterday. There was no ruling out. It was confirmed. Corn. An American boy living in the suburbs has both positive skin and blood tests to corn. This isn't a kid who lives adjacent to Alice Waters in Berkeley. A suburban American kid in East Tennessee.
No really...corn. Not gluten, not nuts, not milk, all of which seem to be at least somewhat understandable in today's society. But corn. Not in the top 8, with no labeling requirements to address it, corn.
WTH????
The NP said she would like us to remove corn from his diet until we come back July 22.
Corn?
For the first time in my life as an allergy parent I honestly don't know that I can do strict avoidance. I am leaning towards only removing closer to whole things. Actual corn, corn chips, corn muffins, use of corn meal, etc.
Really, could a kid who existed almost solely on ketchup, chicken nuggets, fish sticks, crackers, french fries for how many years be allergic to processed corn? The ketchup, nuggets and crackers are all laden with it.
On the flip side, we have had many unexplained instances where after eating a meal K has described his body as tingly. We have had many instances of that with mixed vegetables. That was the reason she put corn on the spt panel. We thought he was making stuff up.
No popcorn? No Fritos? A Southern kid who can't eat cornbread? No nachos?
My grocery bill just went up by $150/month if this is going to be our new reality.
I am honestly rather paralyzed in terms of what to do.
Corn???
I have been an allergy parent for 6 years. My 6 year old K has had no less than 4 rounds of skin prick testing and 4 rounds of RAST blood work. He had his most recent round of skin testing in April and they happened to include corn.
He tested positive. The lovely nurse practitioner said it could be a false positive due to high pollen season. I shrugged and went along happily. She wanted to rule it out by including it on the RAST panel they were running because K's peanut skin test was negative.
The bloodwork came back yesterday. There was no ruling out. It was confirmed. Corn. An American boy living in the suburbs has both positive skin and blood tests to corn. This isn't a kid who lives adjacent to Alice Waters in Berkeley. A suburban American kid in East Tennessee.
No really...corn. Not gluten, not nuts, not milk, all of which seem to be at least somewhat understandable in today's society. But corn. Not in the top 8, with no labeling requirements to address it, corn.
WTH????
The NP said she would like us to remove corn from his diet until we come back July 22.
Corn?
For the first time in my life as an allergy parent I honestly don't know that I can do strict avoidance. I am leaning towards only removing closer to whole things. Actual corn, corn chips, corn muffins, use of corn meal, etc.
Really, could a kid who existed almost solely on ketchup, chicken nuggets, fish sticks, crackers, french fries for how many years be allergic to processed corn? The ketchup, nuggets and crackers are all laden with it.
On the flip side, we have had many unexplained instances where after eating a meal K has described his body as tingly. We have had many instances of that with mixed vegetables. That was the reason she put corn on the spt panel. We thought he was making stuff up.
No popcorn? No Fritos? A Southern kid who can't eat cornbread? No nachos?
My grocery bill just went up by $150/month if this is going to be our new reality.
I am honestly rather paralyzed in terms of what to do.
Corn???
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