Sawyer is upstairs watching Alvin and the Chipmunks with eyes drooping from fresh air and the weight of his lashes.

I can hear Parker, McKenna and Ashlyn’s giggles drifting through the window. They are playing drive-thru window in their old playhouse that is brand new only because it’s standing in a different space. I’m dying to videotape them but it will break the spell.

The floors creak when we walk and I’m silently competing with my husband over who can maintain a fire in our wood-burning stove and I’ve decided wellies go with everything.

I’m not convinced that well water won’t turn my hair orange or that a rock kicked up from the road won’t poke my eye out when I’m getting the mail. But I do know we are home.

Every time I pull into our drive I’m pretty sure my heart expands with the acres and when I wake up in the morning I’m still not ready to blink.

When Sawyer comes downstairs it might be the time in our day when he asks if we are staying here for a “wong, wong time” and I will swap my laptop for an afternoon with a 100% chance of mud

and tell him yes we are.

We are home.

There was something about these kids. My daughter was still an only child at the time so I had no idea about this dynamic and how it presented itself in everyone’s homes. The one thing I did know was the siblings I was fortunate enough to meet were some of the most caring, considerate, wise-beyond-their-years children I have ever met.

I watched little sisters tie big brothers shoes and big teenage brothers hold the hand of their just-as-big siblings and I learned more about compassion and acceptance from my time spent with these kids than I have from any other group of people.

When it was time for my daughter to have siblings I squelched my urge to track down those families I had once worked with and grill them on how they produced such awesome human beings. I crossed my fingers in hopes of having children with just an ounce of the gifts these kids had and waited to see what relationships unfolded.

————

Not long ago I was at the park with my younger children, going from swing, to swing to swing, I tried to keep up with their requests to push them higher/slower/faster/ten more times. A van pulled up and out came several adults from a nearby group home and their staff. Two hopped onto swings next to us and began swinging and laughing loudly, heads back, large-toothed smiles beaming. A few kids at the park stopped to stare, others pointed and one loudly asked his mother why “those big people took the swings.”

My son told the man, probably 40 years his senior, that he was “the best at swinging” he had ever seen and my other two kids didn’t even blink an eye at the guests who had joined the playground.

I wish I could take credit for their acceptance and pure view of others but it is the life they where born into because they have a sister with autism. Different is normal in our house. Of course the days are not all perfect and there are things I wish were easier for all of my children but their ability to see all people as just people? They get that from their sister.

We sat down at dinner tonight and I really sat and looked at this table full of people who are mine. We played the “What was your favorite/least favorite thing you did today?” game. I received the usual answers from the appropriate:

“I liked when we climbed on the bunk beds.”

To the whaaaaat?:

“Daddy does not have a dinosaur. Do circle people have a dinosaur?”

Everyone was still almost sitting so I tried another round of questions with: “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

We started off strong with “a make up designer” and then “a monkey!” and then nose-dived with the token answer for everything “poop.”

The table collapsed into giggles and I started to get up and clean plates because there’s no recovering a conversation once bodily functions are brought up, but my daughters words stopped me.

“We need to hold hands boys.”

They gave the appropriate response to a big sister and went to hold her hand, no questions asked.

“There, now we can do more laughing. Laughing is better when you hold someone’s hand.”

I needed to hear that this week and every week that goes by so quickly that I don’t see what’s right in front of me. We need to hold hands and have a good laugh, even if it’s about the lofty goal of floating in someone’s toilet.

The laughter matters just as much as the person next to you echoing it right back.

frosting 24 cupcakes at midnight, getting up at 1 am to feed the baby and waking up with a bed full of little people by 5

relenting to socks with sandals, mismatched gloves, sunglasses and an inside out shirt with Barbie jewelry, on picture day

telling the kids to stop licking the bowl while swallowing a mouth full of cookie dough

watching two episodes of Mike the Knight and a Dora rerun before you realize you’re the only one in the room

smelling clothes, carpets, diapers, carseats, children and anything of a suspicious color

looking for car keys, your phone and your purse with one hand while holding them all in the other

anxiously awaiting school drop off only to spend a half hour in the hallway trying to get a peak in the classroom

kissing boo boos, over-bandaid-ing and turning Neosporin into a magic potion to stop tears

holding hands until they pull away and balancing weight in your lap until they just won’t stay there anymore and wondering what you are supposed to do with your arms now

and hoping for the end of a long day just as much as you are wishing for tomorrow back

because motherhood is nothing like what you had imagined and everything you never knew to hope for.

——————

If you want to help other mothers around the world give their children a better chance at a healthy live you can because I am joining with Sisters From Another Mister and 20 amazing bloggers to make a difference May 8- May 18th

Disclosure – all giveaways donated to show appreciation for your donations and participation and will be selected via random.org

Link up, comment and share with us as we fundraise on behalf of global moms

Sisters From Another Mister, proud Champion for shot@life and the UN Foundation

The rules are simple;

1. $10 dollar minimum to link your own post on motherhood.

2. $1 for each comment, and you may come back and comment as many times as you like.

3. Donations are tax deductible.

4. The donation page is right here if you would like to read it now.

5. Giveaways will be for both linkers and commenters and chosen by a random.org.

Please link up and comment on the MAIN PAGE only!

Donation page – Team ImmUNITY Nicole and Sisters From Another Mister for shot@life

Every twenty seconds a child dies of a preventable disease

Twenty dollars can save a life

Twenty bloggers are making a difference.

Sisters From Another Mister presents twenty bloggers for shot@life and the UN Foundation

I sat at the funeral home, looking through catalogs of jewelry I never knew existed for such a purpose, and settled on a teardrop-shaped necklace.

I wore Hadley’s necklace every day for years, feeling the weight of it at my chest as I put it on every morning.

I held onto it at holidays and birthdays and moments that were perfect, almost.

There are days I don’t wear it now, someone pulls me away before I can put it on or the morning rush doesn’t include time to fasten a necklace.

And there are days I run back inside to grab it or carry it in a pocket, always meaning to put it on.

She will always be here. Never in the way I want her to be, but here in her sister’s smile, her brother’s giggle and the first star that catches my eye.

The weight of her memory will always sit delicately on my chest,

forever fastened to my heart the moment she left my arms.

Today is International Bereaved Mother’s Day, a day for all of the moms who have lost a child to recognize what we never go a day without thinking about.

I wish so much peace and love and hope to all of the moms out there who have lost a child. It has been five years since we said goodbye and I promise the days get easier. The pain won’t always be so sharp, the memories will soften and you will smile again.

I promise.

ebb more than they flow.

Morning comes before my eyes open

and bedtime comes long after they close.

I check the clock one time too many,

linger in a chair long enough to want to stay.

I bury myself in peeling stickers off walls and fastening princess clothes,

gather train tracks and crumb covered fingers,

and remind myself to breathe it all in.

Because these days that drift, long after they should have cascaded along?

They tumble into years,

into high chairs in storage and cribs coming down,

into preschool cubby holes and toothless grins,

into giddy sleepovers and asking for car keys,

into a quiet life of wondering…

how they ever blurred passed at all.

Laying there, unsatisfied with the lack of results from my grand showcasing of emotions, I would add another sigh or two, for effect. Being mad never really got me anywhere other than staring at the back of my door or glaring at my ceiling hoping that my dad wasn’t right about my face freezing that way.

Today if I were to stomp off to my room I would be followed by half an army and someone would undoubtedly slam their finger in the door. But I have that urge to throw myself into my bed or just huff and puff at the universe for all the stuff. The stuff is making me a little crazy. Like I can sit still in the quiet and my foot will still be tapping over the stuff. My frustration over the grief and the loss and the autism and the special needs everything-under-the-sun in my house has given me a case of serious three year-old pouting and I’m just over here throwing Cheerios at the door while I count the ways things didn’t turn out as I planned.

I ran into our bedroom door last night trying to get to the latest child calling my name. Since I walked full-force into it, I let out an owww and was hunched forward trying to get over the pain in my face when my son said, “Are you okay Mommy but when are you coming to our room?” I stood for a second trying to get my bearings and thought, if that door would have knocked me out I would have been lying on the floor and someone would still be asking for juice and someone else would be melting down and more people would be wanting me to fix their blankets and wash their white shirts. I have to get up because no one else is going to do it for me.

There is the pain and the feeling it and the hanging onto it but there has to be the letting go of it. I may be chanting “the only way out is through” until I’m touring nursing homes but somehow my attitude is not freezing this way. I’m not missing bedtime stories because I’m mad at the door and meltdown #475,682 is not stopping me from the cuddle afterwards.

There will always been a moment that is better than the last and a today that is better than yesterday. I’m just squinting to see them over this big pile of stuff I’ve let knock me down.

this is just write and things I can’t say

Shot@life and the United Nations Foundation are working with great people like Nicole of Sisters From Another Mister who will be hosting a link up of motherhood stories to help raising funds for the campaign. The link up opens May 8th and ends the 18th, I will be taking part and I hope you will too.

Every twenty seconds a child dies of a preventable disease.
Only twenty dollars saves the life of a child.
Twenty bloggers are making a difference!

I’m honored to be part of such an effort and hope that our words will raise awareness for global vaccinations and raise money for those who do not have the means to help themselves…

because every child deserves a shot@life.

How you can take part:

1. Link up a post about motherhood any time from May 8-18th.

2. Donate $10 to shot@life to be part of the fundraiser/link up.

3. Comment or encourage others to comment and donate $1 per comment on your post for a chance to win some amazing prizes.

Supported by shot@life and the UN Foundation

Please make sure to donate to both link and comment (so we can make this fundraiser a success!)- all donations are tax deductible.
Donating is explained on the shot@life donation page.

-Yes honey, I do.

-Because when it rains on us she fills up her hands with colors and throws them all the way down?

-You know what? I think that is exactly what she does.

-Me too, Mommy.

One of my closest friends has two boys with autism. I have watched her unload them from her vehicle, clinging to one while holding her leg across her van door to keep the other from escaping. If she doesn’t move quickly they will be off to whatever catches their twinkling eyes, undoubtedly in different directions.

On Sunday, her beautiful five year old boy followed his curious eyes right out of their home and past the garage door. She and her husband were both home but it only takes a second. That second when one of you knows the other is playing with your son and the other knows that you are feeding him lunch and he is in neither place. By the time the police arrived she was frantic. A neighbor had offered to look for him and her husband was searching as well. Officers spotted her son nearing a busy road but they did not approach him, for fear of his reaction. He weighs all of forty pounds, was barefoot and balancing his prized beanie babies but a police officer was scared off by the word autism.

My friend’s neighbor got to her son first, she comforted him until she could pass him safely to his mom. Today they are ordering alarms for their doors and combing through reviews for safety locks and introducing their boys to every person in the neighborhood while they try to shake off the could have been‘s.

This little boy walked/ran through a neighborhood full of adults, headed for something that caught his eye or a place he couldn’t quite communicate and no one stopped him. No one went out of their way to pause for a barefoot little guy running past with beanie babies in hand. The police didn’t help, only a kind-hearted neighbor came to their aide.

Maybe we do need more autism awareness. Maybe we need better training and more communication and plans to make sure that everyone, EVERY.ONE. understands how autism can affect a family. It may not be your child but it is one in every 50 children so it IS your neighbor’s child, your daughter’s schoolmate, the boy on your son’s soccer team. It takes a village. An understanding, empathetic village who doesn’t mind taking a step out of their comfort zone to make sure a little boy doesn’t take so many steps past his own.