Thursday, January 31, 2013

Well, here we are!

Well, well, well.  Look at me, doing the blog thing.  Ah, who am I kidding? I've wanted to do this FOR. EVER. but haven't had the nerve. Thanks to some encouragement from my lovely Facebook friends (HI, Facebook Friends! You BETTER be reading this!), I took the leap. Welcome to my new blog space, "Life As We Know It".

What do I want for this blog? I want to share our lives and our story.  God knows our story is an interesting one (read my profile to get just a short snippet--and there's much more, I promise!). I swear, if I had won this contest, I was going to pour out the entire story of my life to Hoda and Kathie Lee, and try to get some kind of book deal out of it, because hey, I think it's marketable. Unfortunately, I didn't win. I guess blogging is the next best thing.  I know that I get a lot of life inspiration and affirmation of myself as a mama from reading other blogs, and if someone could get that from reading about our lives, that would be very fulfilling for me.

I also want a place to document the day-to-day amazingness that my kids bring to my life. I am not exaggerating when I say that I think my kids are some of THE FUNNIEST humans on the earth. They say and do things every single day that make me stop and think, "hey, I want to remember this moment forever." By recording them here for all to enjoy, I'll have a little virtual scrapbook (since I do  NOT scrapbook in real life...) to remember all the fun stuff. Added bonus--I will have something I can use to blackmail them with later in life, because nothing embarrasses teens more than gushing parents reminiscing about funny things that they said as toddlers and nakey baby pictures. And let me tell you, I worry about my stubborn girl. I think I'll need that blackmail material.

I want to be able to openly share both our frustrations about and the funny side of raising two kids with special needs. It feels SO WEIRD to say that, because never in a million years did I think I'd be a special needs mom, but it's true. Amelia has physical special needs, with her unidentified rare dwarfism and all of the health issues it brings. She is always going to be TEENY TINY--as in she's about to turn 4, and she weighed in at the doctor yesterday at a whopping 19.6 pounds.  At this point, her tininess (is that a word?) isn't really an issue other than finding clothes to fit her little butt, but I'm a realist and I know that in the future, there will be social ramifications that she will have to deal with (aka mean kids). Anderson has autism, which is a new diagnosis and one that took me a very long time to grasp.  Like most kiddos on the spectrum, he has some totally NT (neuro-typical) traits, and some totally "autistic" traits--he's a good mix.  He uses a lot of echolalia and narrating, likes to play repetetive games (hello--elevator??), and likes routine, but he also has no problem making eye contact and is very social and humorous--you just might not know exactly why he's saying what he's saying.  Having two kids with two totally different sets of needs can be overwhelming, and I want to be able to share that here, but it's also often funny, and I want to be able to share that, too.  We use humor to get through difficult situations in my house, and I think that's a healthy way to deal with the tough stuff. If you can't cry, at least laugh--and I guarantee you'll do that if you keep up with us.

So, that's it! I'm here--please check back with us and share the blog with friends. I promise funny pictures and hilarity for all.