Where Advocacy, Special Needs Parenting, & Life Collide
Special Needs Revelations | The Moody’s Looking Back – Looking Forward
The Moody’s Keep Moving On… or Special Needs Revelations
2011 Memories / 2012 Resolutions
Lost moment in the Moody Archives, brothers just playing around!
This has been one of those kinds of years for the Moodys, filled with ups and downs and so many revelations it sometimes makes our heads spin; at the end of the year I think it is the kind of pseudo special needs revelations that sum our year up the best, though.
Special needs revelations?
In a very literal sense of the words, this has been a year of coming to terms with new diagnoses and symptoms, and coming to grips with what chronic diagnoses like ours can mean. The rare disorder my guys all have won’t ever just go away. Neither will many of their other diagnoses – autism, epilepsy, cerebral palsy.
Oh, they will get better. I hope and expect for them to get better. And my guys prove that correct every day. In the same way that we have had literal special needs revelations in this house this year – new diagnosis for Jim, new symptoms for the boys…we’ve also had special needs revelations in other, more personal ways.
Personal special needs revelations … to be blessed
No matter what life has thrown at us, we Moody’s have stuck our chins out, and we’ve kept moving forward. Like the theme of that Disney movie, Meet the Robinsons (a family favorite, by the way!), we here in the Moody house challenged ourselves to keep looking forward in 2011.
Not formally. We didn’t write in on a slip of paper or announce it, or anything as official as all that. But in our hearts and minds, throughout the year as one thing after another crept into our lives … we began to live with a bit of a theme in our home – “always moving forward.”
Oh, I’m not perfect, as posts here and there at the Cafe will attest, and sometimes I do look back. But in looking forward, our family is free to understand what a blessing our lives, our family, really is. In looking forward, we can look at the whole and realize that life is a journey, and the good must be tempered by the bad in order to create a full path to look back on.
So the more official theme for our family this next year, as we deal with more of the same – new diagnoses, old diagnoses, symptoms too numerous to count – will be to continue moving forward. Always … moving … forward.
How about you?
When you look back on this year, can you see an unofficial theme that you lived by, that you might want to adopt officially?
Are you a special needs family?
Did you have any of your own special needs revelations this year, this past weekend?
Katrina Moody
Graphic Designer, Wordpress Addict, Blogger at Kat's Media & More
I'm a special needs parent before just about everything else in life, but also a passionate advocate for my three boys and husband, who all have a bit of awesomeness about them. Awesomeness = Axenfeld-Rieger Syndrome, Autism, Epilepsy, Dyslexia, Cerebral Palsy, and more. It all adds up to some awesome kids and an amazing family.
@KatrinaMoody
Wife; Mom to 3 guys w/ARS, autism, epilepsy & awesomeness; Advocate. Writer, Graphic Designer, Wordpress addict, social media nut. Site: http://katsmedia.com &
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Hi Kat! Can I ask you how hard to take good care of Children that has special needs? You are really blessed to have them because they are the only one that can make you smile every time you are tired. Hope that 2012 will be your year!
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TracyAnn0312 recently posted..קבלה
I am older than you. I had a different situation when I was younger. My boys were 2 years old and 13 months old. They were with their grandparents and I had just started back to work. I got home and my husband was there and we got a phone call that one of my babies fell in the Columbia River and they were taking him to the hospital. The nightmare began and changed our entire family. I have a lot to say but he had severe spastic quadraplegia, feeding tube, but was in there. He now had cerebral palsy and he was dead for over 20 minutes so I guess it was a miracle they found him and he was revived. I took care of him for 18 years until he died. I have a lot of information about many things. I know I wouldn’t change not taking care of him at home for sure! Take care of yourself and get help whenever you can. Love to talk more to you. Rita
Wow, Rita. What a heartbreaking yet hopeful story you share. That your boy survived such an event … there aren’t enough words to describe how that had to have changed your family.
Cerebral Palsy is one of those diagnoses that can be a product of traumatic brain injury (as in an almost drowning) or birth injury (like in Logan’s case), or for no known reason at all. Your story is a reminder of how very fragile life truly is.
These special kids change our families and change our lives, in ways we never could have foreseen, but the experience is one most of us would never change. Thank you so much for sharing your story, Rita. I’d love the chance to speak with you further … feel free to find me on Facebook, Twitter, or send me a message at kat@katscafe.org {{hugs}}