Consider This...
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Just a Little Conversation, Please.
In all my years of life, on the vast land that I grew up on, never have I experienced the abundance of “cooing” a mourning dove can produce! When we moved to a neighborhood, the noises were all new to me, and quite an adjustment. (I knew that I was sensitive to noise and light, but it must just be how I am wired, because I am still just as sensitive as I was five years ago.) However, we always had bird feeders close to our house, and all around our house. Front yard, back yard, any where you could look out a window, there was a bird feeder. That…
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Heart and Mind
What is your thoughts on comments like these: “Kids will be kids.” “They are just in the terrible twos phase.” “He/She is quite the handful.” “You have your hands full!” My thoughts, can you guess? I’m not a fan. Indeed, I am the first to advocate for kids to be kids! Let them play! Good golly, adults need to chill and join in playing more often. However, this comment is very rarely ever used for this reason. Instead it’s used as an excuse for inappropriate behavior. So is the terrible twos, and all the age related undercutting comments about tweens, teens, and all in between. The latter two comments are…
- "Life" Books, Aunt-ing, Children, Consider This..., Family, Friends & Neighbors, GRANDparents, Mommy, Pass it On..., Siblings
Stealing Boredom.
“I find myself worrying most that when we hand our children phones, we steal their boredom from them. As a result, we are raising a generation of writers who never start writing, artists who will never start doodling, chefs who will never make a mess of the kitchen, athletes who will never kick a ball against a wall, musicians who will never pick up their aunt’s guitar and start strumming.” Glennon Doyle I came across this quote this past week and instantly I felt heard, somehow. Quotes do this for me sometimes, well most of the time. I finished up writing mine and Lucy’s forever and always family story last…
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You Say… I Say…
Everyone has some sort of accent, a way of speaking. We emphasize certain letters, and draw out parts of words, or even shorten words. It comes with the life we live. It makes up part of who we are. There is another category all together, which I’m not sure how you would define it other than genius new versions of words. Let me explain. The majority of the words I am about to present to you, are words that children have used. It’s how their ears hear the word, and how their mind interprets the word, and then how their mouth translates, or attempts to translate the word. I don’t…
- "Life" Books, Chronic Illness, Consider This..., Family, Friends & Neighbors, GRANDparents, Jesus, Mommy, My Little, Single Parenting
What the Sprinkles!?!?!
Oh dear, aww shucks, what the heck…. We do our best to avoid those sneaky four letter words that are so rampant in culture. We quickly try to think of a substitute… That’s what happened with my mom and I when one of us just blurted out, “What the sprinkles!” We were shocked, I don’t even remember what it was about, and sprinkles were in eyesight and so that became the substitute and now is a common phrase around the house. “Potty mouth,” as it was called in the 1990s, was a no-no in our house growing up, but as I have become an adult I have found there are…
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I See You. You See Me.
The talk is rampant of people being labeled, “illegal.” I heard one expert speak this week and made the comment, “People cannot be illegal. They can be undocumented, which is different.” Honestly, from my viewpoint, I agree 100%, and see labeling people “illegal” just as offensive as labeling someone by their diagnosis. (cancer patient, ADHD child, asthmatic child- the person is a person with a diagnosis- I am Anna, who has multiple chronic diagnosis. I wouldn’t ever want any one of these to define the complete existence of myself or anyone else). The people that are being labeled in this way simply, either did not have the correct information to…
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Try a Little Tenderness
I am just going to jump right in today, because if I am completely honest, I have a lot of questions that I am not sure if anyone is willing to answer or even discuss, or at least not in public. So here it goes, I apologize for the small bit of politics that will get me to my questions… The President has made it 100 days (or has it been months?) and if he was going for record breaking numbers, which I think we know he absolutely loves BIG, he seems to very proud and at ease with his agenda. I, of course assume this because if he was…
- "Life" Books, Children, Chronic Illness, Consider This..., Family, Friends & Neighbors, GRANDparents
They’ve Chosen the Wrong Battle
You’re now in a secret world. You’ll see things you never imagined; ignorance, rudeness, and discrimination. But you’ll also witness so many everyday miracles, and you’ll know it. You won’t think a milestone is just a milestone, you’ll know it’s a miracle and be present in that moment. You’ll treasure things most wouldn’t think twice about. You’ll become an advocate, an educator, a specialist and a therapist, but most of all, you’ll be a mom to the most wonderful child. Geraldine Renton “They have no clue who they are messing with!” I have said this over and over in the past few weeks. Medical research funding cuts were enough to…
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Heartburn
Every time I come across a picture or video of Lucy getting mad – it makes me giggle, because one of the first things they asked me in the ER was, “Is she vocal?” She wasn’t speaking words, but she had a voice and she used it! She was just taking in her surroundings. When they started poking her they found out just how big of a voice she had 😂 That’s my girl! Some days I have a cascading day of “medical triggers.” (I am not sure what else to call them, because one triggers another, and most of the time there wouldn’t be a simple connection between them.)…
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When Your Lucky Underpants Don’t Work
They should gamify your medical records so that each time you have a new and exciting symptom, you unlock an achievement in MyChart. Haha! If only this was true! I recently requested all my records – it took them a while – but I eventually received a digital file of a beautiful 7,000+ pages of records. I didn’t just request them for the fun of requesting them. I wanted them to go over some of my medical history. However, the overwhelming gratitude I have for every doctor, nurse, therapist, radiologist, the list goes on- who cared for and treated me – only explodes as I read through these pages. And…
