I've been wanted to write a post about mornings forever, but, of course, I have no time :) Finally, today, things have settled a bit and I've got about 3 minutes to spit out this blog.
Here's the thing about weekday mornings in my house....they STINK!!!
Now, let me regress for a moment. I used to love mornings. I truly did. I was a "morning person." When I lived with my parents after college, before I married Sam, I would wake up to a fresh pot of coffee courtesy of my dad, down my first cup, jump in the shower and watch the Today Show while applying my make-up and carefully dressing in my freshly ironed clothes, courtesy of my mom. I would grab a second cup of coffee, jump in my sporty little Honda Civic and cruise into work listening to U2. Ahhhhh....those were the days. I loved my mornings. It was the best time of my day because it was quiet, calm and relaxing. HA!!!!
Fast forward 10 years and it's the total opposite now. (I just want to interject here that I've already been interrupted 3 times while writing this....ay yi yi). Anyway, NOW, I literally wake up late every, single day. So, when I do wake up I hit the ground running. For real. I run to get the kids, run them into the bathroom, while they're "taking care of business", I run and get their breakfast ready. While they eat their breakfast, I run and collect, clothes, socks, shoes, jackets, hats, gloves, glasses, etc. It's generally at this point that I remember I have a 3rd child. So, I run into her room to find her happily looking at her mobile. Shew....I'll leave her there just a bit longer. Run back to the kitchen, grab a cup of coffee, scrup my face, throw on workout clothes (which is a bit humorous since I almost NEVER work out while the kids are at school, it's just easier to wear them than to actually look nice). Now, 2 things are happening while I'm running around. 1.) I'm screaming like a chicken with my head cut off the entire time and 2.) My children are very slowly picking apart their waffles, meandering around the house, sleepily talking to each other. There is NO sense of urgency in their little minds. They're just like their father :)
So, it makes me scream louder (and more unintelligble). Anyway, almost every day we make it out the door and almost every day I'm amazed that we did. Well, I take that back, I'm ALWAYS amazed that we actually made it out the door.
On our way to school we listen to Milkshake, Barney, Elmo, a LeapFrog DVD, whatever, it's NOT U2 :(
However, when we make it to light at Bellona Ave and Joppa Road, I always look in my rearview mirror and am so thankful for my little peanuts, I don't even care about the craziness of the morning compared to what it used to be. I'm just grateful to be there mom. And, I hope they'll forget that I was a crazy lady in the mornings when they're older!!
Now, getting them into school....well, that's another story :)
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Ugh, so I haven't written a post in forever!!! I think, partly, because this time of year is SUPER crazy. Isn't it? My God, we hardly have ANY free time. Also, I think since I'm not writing everyday, I'm not thinking about it constantly, therefore; I have no idea what to write!!!
However, today I got an email from an organization I've been following since Logan was born and I really wanted to share it with everyone.
First, let me give you some background on this organization. About 4 years ago, Logan was almost 6 months old and while I was getting dinner together one night, he was sitting on the kitchen floor banging on pots and pans. I had the TV on and was watching the Nightly News with Brian Williams. Ann Curry came on with a story about institutions and orphanages in Eastern European countries. I believe she was in Serbia. Anyway, the basic jist of the story was that babies who were born with any sort of disability were put in these orphanages that were absolutely terrible!!! Horrible, horrible places. THEN, the camera panned to a little boy, about 6 months old, with Down syndrome TIED to his crib posts. I nearly fell on the ground in shock. I could NOT believe that people with disabilities were still treated like that. (I say still because many people with disabilities in the United States were placed in institutions for years and years and years and, really, only recently, has that practice changed. However, some people still do live in these institutions although they're called something else to make it seem not as bad.)
Anyway, back to the little boy. I watched THAT little boy on TV and MY little boy on the kitchen floor making music and I wanted to just die. It was the most heart wrenching site I had ever seen. It touched me so deeply. For months and months I would sneak into Logan's room to watch him sleep and imagine if he hadn't been born to us, if he hadn't been born in this country. It was a sick thing to do, but I couldn't help it. And, I couldn't get the images of these children out of my head.
So, I contacted the organization that provided Ann Curry with the information on the orphanages to see what I could do to help. I've been receiving emails from them ever since. Sometimes they ask for letters to be written to our government officials, sometime to other countries, sometimes they just need money, or sometimes they just pass information along. I'm still very much pained by these emails and all the tragic stuff that goes on in the world, but I'm not naive about it anymore. I know it's happening and I try, very hard, to do the best I can to stop it.
Right now, with 3 kids 4 years old and under, I don't have a ton of time to write letters and emails and make phone calls, but I can pass the information on and hope and pray that someone out there will help to fight for the rights of these poor people.
And, I don't want to sound preachy about this, but I also feel like there's a connection to be made between these institutions and the segregation of our kids at schools. As I said earlier, for years and years and YEARS people with disabilities were literally taken from their mothers' wombs and put in institutions. Some of these parents didn't even have a choice. They were TOLD that it was the ONLY thing they could do for their baby. It was heart-wrenching and painful and sometimes, sometimes, parents wouldn't accept that fate for their child. They either refused to send them to the insitutions or they went and got them after several days, weeks or months. This VERY slowly started to catch on and parents started refusing the send their babies away.
Now, it's more the norm to take your baby home with you and "just love" him or her. That's what we did :) Thank GOD!!!
However, in our schools, kids are still seperated from their peers. It's not as extreme as living in an insitution outside of society, but it's still segregation and it's still harming our kids!!
People are always saying to me how amazing Logan is, and, for a while I took the credit for that (lol) but then I started to realize that a) I'm not really doing anything for him that other people aren't doing for their kids and b) all the other kids I know who have DS are pretty much the same as Logan. So, why is this? After pondering it for a couple of years, I think it's NOT that they're so exceptional, it's just that they're able to live up to almost their full potential now because they're NOT treated AS poorly as they used to be.
Can you IMAGINE how well they would do, how exceptional they would be, if they really, truly were just treated like EVERYONE ELSE!!!! If we really, truly didn't use their physical charateristics to pre-judge their abilities? I can imagine. They WOULD be like everyone else.
Oh Lord, I've really gone off on some tangents here. But, here's the point, parents stopped sending their children to institutions to be separated from society and they've done exceptionally well. Now, let's just take it one step farther and STOP separating them in the schools and watch and see all the amazing things they will do with that. Let's see them reach their FULL potential.
Here are the links to Disability Rights International and some of their recent news stories:
http://www.disabilityrightsintl.org/
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/mexican-psychiatric-institution-hell/story?id=12267276&page=1
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/01/world/americas/01mexico.html?_r=1
However, today I got an email from an organization I've been following since Logan was born and I really wanted to share it with everyone.
First, let me give you some background on this organization. About 4 years ago, Logan was almost 6 months old and while I was getting dinner together one night, he was sitting on the kitchen floor banging on pots and pans. I had the TV on and was watching the Nightly News with Brian Williams. Ann Curry came on with a story about institutions and orphanages in Eastern European countries. I believe she was in Serbia. Anyway, the basic jist of the story was that babies who were born with any sort of disability were put in these orphanages that were absolutely terrible!!! Horrible, horrible places. THEN, the camera panned to a little boy, about 6 months old, with Down syndrome TIED to his crib posts. I nearly fell on the ground in shock. I could NOT believe that people with disabilities were still treated like that. (I say still because many people with disabilities in the United States were placed in institutions for years and years and years and, really, only recently, has that practice changed. However, some people still do live in these institutions although they're called something else to make it seem not as bad.)
Anyway, back to the little boy. I watched THAT little boy on TV and MY little boy on the kitchen floor making music and I wanted to just die. It was the most heart wrenching site I had ever seen. It touched me so deeply. For months and months I would sneak into Logan's room to watch him sleep and imagine if he hadn't been born to us, if he hadn't been born in this country. It was a sick thing to do, but I couldn't help it. And, I couldn't get the images of these children out of my head.
So, I contacted the organization that provided Ann Curry with the information on the orphanages to see what I could do to help. I've been receiving emails from them ever since. Sometimes they ask for letters to be written to our government officials, sometime to other countries, sometimes they just need money, or sometimes they just pass information along. I'm still very much pained by these emails and all the tragic stuff that goes on in the world, but I'm not naive about it anymore. I know it's happening and I try, very hard, to do the best I can to stop it.
Right now, with 3 kids 4 years old and under, I don't have a ton of time to write letters and emails and make phone calls, but I can pass the information on and hope and pray that someone out there will help to fight for the rights of these poor people.
And, I don't want to sound preachy about this, but I also feel like there's a connection to be made between these institutions and the segregation of our kids at schools. As I said earlier, for years and years and YEARS people with disabilities were literally taken from their mothers' wombs and put in institutions. Some of these parents didn't even have a choice. They were TOLD that it was the ONLY thing they could do for their baby. It was heart-wrenching and painful and sometimes, sometimes, parents wouldn't accept that fate for their child. They either refused to send them to the insitutions or they went and got them after several days, weeks or months. This VERY slowly started to catch on and parents started refusing the send their babies away.
Now, it's more the norm to take your baby home with you and "just love" him or her. That's what we did :) Thank GOD!!!
However, in our schools, kids are still seperated from their peers. It's not as extreme as living in an insitution outside of society, but it's still segregation and it's still harming our kids!!
People are always saying to me how amazing Logan is, and, for a while I took the credit for that (lol) but then I started to realize that a) I'm not really doing anything for him that other people aren't doing for their kids and b) all the other kids I know who have DS are pretty much the same as Logan. So, why is this? After pondering it for a couple of years, I think it's NOT that they're so exceptional, it's just that they're able to live up to almost their full potential now because they're NOT treated AS poorly as they used to be.
Can you IMAGINE how well they would do, how exceptional they would be, if they really, truly were just treated like EVERYONE ELSE!!!! If we really, truly didn't use their physical charateristics to pre-judge their abilities? I can imagine. They WOULD be like everyone else.
Oh Lord, I've really gone off on some tangents here. But, here's the point, parents stopped sending their children to institutions to be separated from society and they've done exceptionally well. Now, let's just take it one step farther and STOP separating them in the schools and watch and see all the amazing things they will do with that. Let's see them reach their FULL potential.
Here are the links to Disability Rights International and some of their recent news stories:
http://www.disabilityrightsintl.org/
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/mexican-psychiatric-institution-hell/story?id=12267276&page=1
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/01/world/americas/01mexico.html?_r=1
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
