New Teef

My 3 year old likes to ask random strangers if they like his new teeth.  He got a bridge recently to replace his missing front four teeth, and after a day of refusing to believe a reality existed where his tongue was so trapped, he fell in love with his new pearly whites and their magical ability to bite food in half.

He's still missing two teeth on the bottom, mind you, so he's still got his playground cred if anyone gets too close to his toys.  He regularly confirms that the dentist won't give him anymore teeth as he lovingly caresses his phantom bottom teeth.

My life is weird sometimes.

Support Group Feels

Tonight I went out of my comfort zone (both socially and temperature wise....BURRR) and went to a support group for parents of children with special needs put on by one of Little Bug's private therapy clinics.  I didn't particularly want to go because it seemed like a real downer of an evening to sit in a circle while everyone cried about how hard it is to have a special needs child.  I'd rather just have a pity party on my couch with a glass of wine and reruns of Once Upon a Time while willing time to stop until morning.

But my resolution word for the year is "move" and one of my biggest goals is to make friends with people in my immediate area who understand what it is like to wade through IEPs and schedule life around therapies and how awesome the little victories can be.  I've been realizing that while I can do this whole special needs mama gig on my own island, I don't NEED to.  I can find and build a support system.  But it won't come to me.  I will have to build it myself.

So I put on my favorite warm boots and off I went to to what I thought was a glorified special needs parenting speed dating session.

Turns out, it was just too cold for people to get off their bums, and me and one other mom ended up outnumbered by therapists and counselors and cookies.

But that hour long session went almost 2 hours as the five of us had a refreshing disucssion about the challenges of raising a child with special needs, the blessings that come with raising a child with special needs, and how we could take this "support group" and turn it into something so much more than a circle of wah.  We brainstormed topics to have the clinic bring in experts for educational sessions before the support group portion of the night.  We shared tips and resources.  We exchanged numbers and talked diagnoses and IEPs and yoga and our secret hatred of bath time.  We ate cookies.

I left feeling somehow refreshed, recharged, and yes, supported.  And I'll brave the cold next month to go back again.

Toasty Warm Feelings

Dear Little Moon,

For 3 months now, I've been consumed with the idea of being yours.  You've lost so many times already in your life, and although some of those losses you might not feel now, they have spurred me on even wilder to finally, officially make us the family you can claim as yours.

Even more than I want to claim you, I want you to be able to claim us.  I want the people who care about you (and there are so many) to feel secure knowing that you have a Mommy, Daddy, and two brothers who are committed to you, no matter what. I want them to know that 5 years from now, you'll have someone to tuck you in at night and make you feel like the most special child in the world. That is what has kept me up at night, the worry that we might not be real, that we might be just another fleeting potential path in your life.

I can wait a year for you.  I can spend crazy sums of money to send piles of papers to anyone who needs them.  I can live off blurry pictures. I can shove love into gallon ziplock bags a month at a time. I can schedule my life out a month at a time, rather than a season. I'm happy, honored even, to be able to do that for the chance to be your Mom.

What I found I couldn't deal with was not being connected to you "officially."  I need my name next to yours.  And now that it finally is, I'm finding that is enough for me, for now.

And on the day when those papers making us yours were finally stamped official, you were in an office half a world away, posing for pictures that, for the first time, everyone knew for sure were for your parents.

I want to know what the giggle that accompanies your trademark grin sounds life.  I want to smooth back your wispy hair and count your little fingers, one by one.  I want to hug you and tell you that this time, it's for real.

I'm also terrified for the day when I get to do that, but that's for a different note.  Today I'm just happy that we're connected and that you're warm and happy.

That's enough for me.

Manufacturing Magic

We just got back from a lovely vacation to the Mouse House in Florida.  Overall, it was a wonderful week filled with true excitement and wonder from both our sons.  Our tender Little Bug was genuinely content to be part of the atmosphere and drank it in while still mustering some bravery to try new things.  Our Little Bro, the adrenaline junkie, couldn't get enough of the rides and characters. It's a true shame he has 15 more inches to go before he can tackle the bigger coasters. He'll tell you as much, too.

Honestly, despite the fact that we didn't take a single nap break, usually opened and closed the parks, and I had to go it entirely alone for a solid day at Anim@l Kingd0m after Appa got food poisoning, I'd dare call this hardcore week of Disney an easy vacation.

That is in no small point to a small red card we were issued, the guest access card.

I've been reading about it for a while.  It's a card Disney will issue for people with invisible special needs, people who might need accommodations that aren't outwardly apparent.  They are specific for each person and although easy to get, often come with a pretty negative response when other guests see you use them (we didn't experience anything like that, for the record). They can provide accommodations for a variety of things, but the two accommodations I was concerned for was the ability to wait in an alternative line with more room (should he get into one of his fits we've been seeing lately and have no where to go while trapped 20 minutes deep in a small confined line) and the ability to wait in a shaded area when available (Little Bug gets severe heat stroke very easily).  It isn't meant to allow you to skip lines or shorten your wait, but the reality is, it usually does.

I was wavering up until we walked through the gates as to whether or not I would request one for Little Bug.  Appa seemed highly skeptical of the idea, and I could see his point.  We try very hard to walk the fine line of treating Little Bug like a typically developing child and not limiting our expectations for him and providing him accommodations that will make his life easier. In this case, we very specifically chose this particular week when crowds are at their absolute lowest levels to go. We bought him a new device to help distract him when he got antsy.  We had his chewie necklace and oils for his sensory diet.  We very specifically made sure he loaded up on protein each morning (a must for his medication to work its most effectively).  In short, we had covered every base we could cover to make sure he was at his best to enjoy his trip.

But the fact remained that even with all our planning, wait times for his favorite rides that he would insist on doing over and over could at times reach 40 minutes or longer. Could he wait in a 40 minute confined line? Yes. Could he do it over and over? Maybe. Would it make for a positive experience for him? No. Would it potentially ruin his ability to participate in 4 days worth of 40 minute lines? Very likely.

So I knew that the guest access card could potentially help our family enjoy a more stress-free experience, but it also meant limiting what we thought Little Bug could do, which never feels good as a parent.

Long story short, we got the pass and it was such a blessing.  We only used it when the sun was beating down on us or when the lines got longer than what we thought Little Bug was emotionally and physically up for at that time (which, towards the end, got less and less, I will admit). But that card gave us the confidence and freedom to plan our days in a way that allowed us to experience everything we wanted to try, as many times as the boys wanted to.  Without it, I am confident that Little Bug would have melted down more than once, which would have resulted in fewer fun experiences for both boys.  With it, we knew we could experience a more typical Disney day, and we did just that.

So at the end of the vacation, both Appa and I agreed that getting the card was the best move for our family.  I'm grateful to Disney for recognizing that some people need different things in order to have their most magical experience.  I'm relieved that in this case, Appa and I also recognized that Little Bug needed something different in order for him to have the best experience he could.  I'm hopeful that we won't need a guest access card for our next visit, but for this trip, it really made the trip for one little boy.

When Little Bug has been talking in his sleep the last couple days, he routinely loving murmurs two words over and over: "Disney World."

As a parent who wanted to give her son something very special, that is all I need to hear to know we made all the right choices this time around.

The Happiest Place on Earth

Leave it to the happiest place on earth to make me a bit blue.

I've been doing well/fine/whatever with the expected, but ridiculous, hold ups in our process with Little Moon's adoption paperwork, and I still am.  (Low expectations and a pessimistic timeline, people, that is my secret sauce of adoption sanity.)  But watching Little Bug and Little Bro literally float on a happy high through the land of the Mouse today and knowing we have a full week of magic ahead of us, I've found myself thinking of Little Moon over and over.  Missing him, wishing he was here, imagining what it would be like to have three little boys sprinting toward the transportation boat like it was the greatest ride in the history of the world.

I did the same thing, to a lesser extent, the last time we were here.  We were waiting for Little Bro and I had this sense of guilt that we hadn't waited for him to come.  I made him an entire care package of Disney items, including a shirt he still fits in and will be wearing back to its mouseland tomorrow.  There is a part of me that feels like I'm making some wrong right by bringing Little Bro here and letting him have his fun.

But my Little Moon, his absence is something I am feeling more acutely than I ever have before.  I want him to be able to be here with us, experiencing things with wonder and magic.  I know he is in great hands right now, but here and now, I want him in MY hands.  So I'll scour the parks for just the right things to send to him, tangible proof that he was with us in spirit and a promise that one day we'll bring him here to experience it with us.

Hopefully just in enough years that I won't have to find a triple stroller set up....

Of Shoes and Shirts

I'm not going to lie, I hate light up shoes.  I think they are cheesy and ugly and usually accompanied by bright and annoying color combos that manage to match nothing.  Before Little Bug came home, I swore he would never own a pair.  And for a long time, he didn't.  He hoofed it (when he could eventually hoof it), in brown leather shoes, cute and basic and slightly bland...pretty much my taste.

And then, in a moment of lunacy at T@rget one afternoon, I bought him a pair of obnoxious Lightning McQueen light up shoes as well as a new pair of brown shoes.  Needless to say, the brown shoes got little wear after my son's face shone with joy and pride for weeks after those stupid light up shoes showed up.

And I swore that in this world where he has so many crappy things to deal with, bland shoes would never again be one of them.

But I'm here to tell you that light up shoes are gateway fashion.  Once your kid has a giant red race car with a face on his foot, it seems silly to insist he wear a cute stripped sweater or polo shirt when all he really wants to do is wear his Thomas shirt.  And because you've already debased his feet, what's the harm in letting him enjoy a neon blue shirt with a neon orange smiling train plastered across the front?  As much as it kills me inside, it's hard for me now to buy him any article of clothing that I can't imagine him getting excited about.

Hence the teal shirt with a hot dog wearing a mustard mustache, the multiple shirts with construction and farm equipment, and the most horrifically obnoxious Cars and Thomas shirts to ever grace screen printers. He even has a reindeer shirt that is in rotation during months it certainly shouldn't be in rotation.  God help us all the first time he sees a shirt that actually lights up.

And for Little Bro, I can't just insist that because he doesn't have to rely on his clothing to help with social skills he can only wear clothes his Mama likes.  In the couple of months since Little Bug got his coveted new fire truck shoes, Little Bro has been increasingly sad (and vocal) about his displeasure at his black canvas kicks that I adore.  If I am going to embrace it, I need to embrace it for both boys. Boo.

Despite my attempt at swaying him toward something, anything less red and bright, Little Bro insisted on fire truck shoes just like his brother.  This morning, they stood there staring at each other, both finally wearing light up fire truck shoes, and you'd think I just told them they won the lottery.  They both started jumping up and down and sqealing with delight.  "Look Mama, Look!  Little Bug/Little Bro's fire truck shoes!!!!"  There was much pointing and excited shaking of fists and stomping of feet.

It was cute and they were happy.  And I am a sucker for them being cute and happy.

And for the record, I may or may not have purchased a DIY screen printing kit to make 뿡뿡이 shirts.  Having your kid wear an orange farting thing on a shirt is probably rock bottom as far as kid's fashion can go.

In the Jammie Aisle

I'm on the hunt for Thomas the Train jammies in XS/S boys sizes (not 5T).  Little Bug's heart is broken into a million little sodor-sobbing pieces because he doesn't have any Thomas jammies, so much so that he will sneak into Little Bro's jammie drawer and shove his not-2T body into 2T Thomas jammies.  Appa and I don't have the heart to change him out of them, but I'm obsessive about checking every place I got for a larger size Thomas jammie.

Hence how I found myself hidden in a jungle of video game/angry bird/motocross jammies while Little Bro sang in his cutest, loudest voice "Mommy, come out and find you, Mommy, 123 noooooooow" from a couple feet away.  The woman next to me kept laughing at him and striking up a conversation, which eventually struck me as a little off.

When I got to the cart, I realized the woman actually wanted to talk to me.  She asked how old he was, etc etc, and then I saw her hesitate and I knew she was going in for the adoption/Korean baby daddy question.

Sigh.  It gets old. It really does.  I get it, but it gets old.

But I knew this wasn't that when her question was directed at Little Bro; "where were you born?"

Granted, that question could have backfired on her if I really did have a Korean baby-daddy, but I don't and she just asked my favorite icebreaker question.

Even better was Little Bro's reply, the first time he's ever been independently asked a question like that.

"I was a baby in KooooWeeeA and played with my Omma and Appa and this is my Mommy."  Then he pounded on my chest, likely the only thing that kept it from bursting with pride all over the floor.

And if you haven't guessed it yet, this woman was a mama with kids born in another country, too.  So we chatted for a few minutes, the three of us.  Little Bro was an active participant, insisting that all babies come on airplanes from KoooWeeA and that his buddies L and E (both recently home) got balloons and that Little Moon would get balloons too.  But mainly that babies come on airplanes from Korea and balloons are involved. End.of.story.

We'll work on that when he actually sees a baby come from somewhere other than an airplane from Korea.