It’s coming. Can you feel it – the hint of warmth in the breeze and the sheer volume of birdsong in the morning? Spring is so close. With it comes longer days, al fresco dining, and the ability to walk outside without five layers of clothes. But first we must lose that extra hour of… Continue reading Four Ways to Help Kids Ease into the Time Change

What Are Developmental Disabilities? Developmental disabilities are a group of conditions that come from a physical, learning, language, or behavior impairment that manifests before the individual turns 22. These conditions usually last throughout a person’s lifetime and can affect everyday living. Recent estimates in the United States show that about one in six (17%) of… Continue reading Developmental Disabilities Awareness Month: Beyond the Conversation

There were airplanes in primary colors on the walls of the developmental clinic. Red and yellow and blue and green planes that seemed to move the longer I looked at them. That’s what I remember from the day my son Charlie was diagnosed with cerebral palsy. It’s a trippy thing to process that kind of… Continue reading Medical Equipment for Disabilities: The Freebies Make All the Difference

We Cannot Underestimate the Importance of Disabled Role Models for Our Kids I’m pretty good at being my son Charlie’s mom. I know the difference between his sad cry and mad cry, his happy laugh and jokester laugh. I know his favorite foods and can probably guess what he’d want to do at any given… Continue reading The Importance of Disabled Role Models

When my son Charlie was born, the primary thing I noticed were his eyes. They were technicolor blue like the kid from A Christmas Story and surrounded by a fringe of the longest lashes I had ever seen. I was so sucked into their orbit that I forgot to blink. When I did, I registered… Continue reading The Body is a Memory

This Feb. 6-10, 2023, we’re celebrating the thirteenth annual Feeding Tube Awareness Week® with the Feeding Tube Awareness Foundation. Feeding Tube Awareness Week was created to increase awareness and educate the public on the lifesaving benefits of enteral nutrition. A feeding tube is a medical intervention that provides essential nutrition and hydration. More than 200… Continue reading Happy Feeding Tube Awareness Week!

Advocacy Doesn’t Have to Mean 100% Inclusion I want my son Charlie to be with his peers. I want him to roll his wheelchair out onto the playground for recess and sit in the cafeteria during lunch and participate in the Fun Run (where his aide wheeled him in whirligig circles on the track until… Continue reading Is Inclusion Always the Right Choice?

For my fortieth birthday, I rode the Ferris wheel at the Santa Monica Pier. The sun setting over the ocean cast a pink glow across beachgoers strolling along the sand. Holiday music echoed from the speakers along the boardwalk below. And next to me, my spouse leaned too far over the edge of our plastic… Continue reading At Forty I Learned to Leave

I’m Not Raising a Wilting Flower This pandemic has challenged every single one of us as humans. Children, teens, adolescents, adults: we all have had to balance an extra set of life demands that have been outside of the scope of any other life experience we have had thus far. I often pose the question… Continue reading How to Raise Resilient Children

Hippotherapy, aka horseback riding therapy, has been my son Charlie’s favorite pastime for the last six years. He is ten. To remember him on his first horse is to remember a different season of life. Dumpling was like a sweet old man in a pony’s body. He moved in slow, gentle stops and starts that… Continue reading Less Work, More Play: It’s Time To Change the Way We View Therapy