Spread the Word To End the Word

These are my children:



One of them is different than the others. I'll give you a hint:



Clearly the Jumbster is younger than his siblings and obviously much more hip. I mean, just look at the boy's shoes.



And unlike his siblings, he already owns his own set of wheels:



This is a boy who clearly knows how to party:



How many people do you know who can rock wearing a balloon on their head?

My son believes in dental hygiene and practical jokes. Which is why he actively seeks out his older brother's leg just so he can gnaw on it. I'm pretty sure he's using Frac's leg hair as dental floss.



This boy is patriotic:



But he's no jack ass whisperer.



And like all good boys, he's clearly a momma's boy:



He's all of these things, and more. He wears more labels around his neck than most people wear in a lifetime. He is all of those labels, those random tags pinned onto him to help other's identify and deal with his uniqueness and he is more. Strip away all the medical and legal jargon and maybe you'll see my son the way we do.

There is one label, however, that my son refuses to claim.

Jumby is many things, but he is not, RETARDED.

He is not the butt of your jokes, he is not what you mean when you accidentally or casually toss the 'retarded' word around.

I've written about why using the r-word hurts and demeans not only my child but everyone. I've explained why this word, this slang that is so often accepted and ignored is wrong. I'll keep writing about it, banging away on my little keyboard, hoping one more person takes the time to read my words and see the world filtered through my family's eyes.

Through Jumby's eyes.

I hope you'll re-read those words today. And then I hope for one small moment you will put yourself in the shoes of a boy who was born at 24 weeks because his birth mother was high on crack. Wear the shoes of the boy who spent five months in a hospital after birth just struggling to survive. Take a few steps in those shoes of a boy who was shaken when he was six months old. And then walk another couple steps for the time he was violently assaulted, smothered and shaken again before he turned two.

There is a reason my son is blind, deaf and in a wheelchair. There is a reason he will never be like you or like me.

My son is many things.

But he's not retarded.

Spread the word to end the word.

Peace out peeps.

One Man's Embarrassment is Another Man's Treasure

When I was a less experienced mother, with smaller, younger children I would frequently take my kids with me where ever I went. Mostly because I was too poor to pay for a quality sitter and I didn't quite trust that homeless guy in town who promised to sit for free if only I let him have my empties and unlimited access to fresh towels. How's that for some quality maternal instincts?

Other than that homeless guy there really wasn't anyone else who could watch my kids. I tended to exhaust any family resources I had with Shale's unending hospitalizations and medical appointments. I never wanted to ask for babysitting unless it was medically related for one of my children. It never occurred to me to ask for sitting if I was the one with the doctors' appointments. I mean, it's totally normal for women to bring three feral smalls to a gynecologist's office, hand them a few speculums, some wooden tongue depressors and then tell them to play nicely while their mother's insides are probed like an alien? Right?

Over the course of the years though, I got better at passing off my children onto people so that one magical day I was able to wander about in public without any children hanging off of me.

That sound you heard? The voices in my head all lined up like a choir to sing Hallelujah, Leonard Cohen style.

I've now grown so accustomed to being out in public without any children with me at all I almost start to worry I've forgotten how to do it.

Now that my smalls have morphed into ridiculously good-looking and talented teenagers (they take after me) I've had less opportunity to even consider taking all three of my kids out in public than normal. Mostly because my older children have instituted some weird personal rule about not being seen with me outside the domain of which I own.

Jumby, however, still loves me best. He's a good boy and quite possibly my favourite as of this minute.

But this weekend, the stars aligned just so that Jumbster needed diapers, I had to pick up Frac's new glasses and possibly some pants to fit the poor boy since everything I bought for him in September now only reach the tops of his ankles and Fric informed me that she was in dire need of a costume for her upcoming musical theatre production. Oh and she needed it by today. Thanks for the 18 hours notice kid.

Which is how I found myself with three children and a wheelchair in a mall on a Sunday afternoon. With absolutely no chaperone.

Shopping with teenagers is a wildly different experience than when I used to take my smalls out shopping with me.

First of all, I can't strap them in a buggy no matter how often I threaten to do so.

Secondly, neither of them wants to hold my hand.

And oddly enough, they don't like being asked if they have to go potty every five minutes.

But.

There were perks. I never had to worry about navigating Jumby's wheelchair through narrow aisles in cramped stores. Mostly because Fric and Frac threatened to gnaw off my hands if I claimed ownership of their little brother. Jumby: The newest status symbol for cool teens everywhere. Who knew?

And those heavy bags no one likes to schlep around?  That's what teenagers are for! I called it a muscle building exercise.

And best of all? Whenever my teens started to step out of line all I had to do was threaten to not let them go into the Apple store. Instant obedience! It was pure magic.

Oh Steve Jobs. Your legacy is a teenager's crack. Withholding you makes them twitch. More effective than Santa Clause ever was.

The day turned out to be wildly successful if you don't count that one moment when I was clucking very loudly and flapping my arms like a chicken, causing Jumby to cackle hysterically. We were having a great time, even if people were starting to stare. I still don't know why Fric and Frac pretended they didn't know us and walked really fast away from the two of us. It turned out okay though because Jumby and I just chased after them, yelling their names REALLY LOUDLY throughout the mall until we finally cornered them.

As I was loading everyone back into our vehicle to make the pilgrimage back home I realized that there was an expiration date on these family-shopping outings together. Soon enough Fric and Frac will be going in their own directions, leaving the Jumbster and me to shop on our own. I'm not quite ready for that just yet.

How did I go from needing a babysitter all the time to wishing I still did?

The good news is I've got at least a few more good years ahead of me to perfect the art of mall shopping with my teens.

And if there is anything I've learned over the years and was reminded of just yesterday, it's that one child's embarrassing moments is this mom's most treasured memory.

I can't wait till someone needs socks and underwear so we can go back to the mall and do it all again.

 

 

Leap Year Magic

Random odd fact about me: My third child was supposed to be born on Feb 29, 2000. Not the Shale-ster,  no, not unless he had the gestation period of an elephant, but a different third child, lost to the whispers of feint hope somewhere along week 16.

I'm not, nor was I, overly devastated at the loss. I was more irritated that I went through weeks of morning sickness with nothing to show for it other than faulty biology. I didn't know my identity would soon be shaped by the loss of children. Those born and those not.

But every leap year that jumps on by, I wonder about that would-be baby and what he or she would have been like. Just for a moment really, the amount of time it takes my heart to beat once and then I'm past it, onto other wonderments like how I managed to have a daughter who is so perpetually perfect until she is not or a son who seems to be allergic to hygiene or another son who fears marshmallows the way I once feared toy poodles with pink shiny bows in their hair.

I've always been fascinated by the leap year. As a child the bonus day seemed so special. Like it was filled with magic and possibilities. I both envied and pitied the one person I knew whose birthday fell on the date. It was a curiosity I couldn't help examine, like an old seashell found on a sandy shore or the bird's nest found while climbing a tree.

I woke up this morning, the day swollen with possibilities, a remnant of my childhood innocence I suppose, only cemented by once, fleetingly, being the mother to a child to be born on the day.

Except today turned out to be just like every other day before.

The dogs still snored at my side, shedding their black hairs all over my comforter. My husband was still away at work. My children, those who live, still bickered in the kitchen about arms being shoved into sleeves, toast that was too burnt, milk that seemed to disappear too fast.

Life carried on with out a hint of magic the day once seemed to promise.

What a let down I thought, as I took my dogs to trudge in the snow with me to our mailbox down at the end of the road.

As my dogs marked their territory on the small mountain of dirty snow alongside the line of rural postal boxes, I bent down to open my little metal box.

I peered into the dark hole and started pulling out flyers and envelopes, which surely contained bills and other trivial boringness, and then I saw it, all the way in the back of the box, pushed almost out of reach.

A small package.

The dogs and I turned to make our way home and as we walked I wondered what was in the box. It was a curiosity and I was most certainly the cat.

At home I ripped open the envelope to find inside it, a small purple box.

No note, just the box.

Curious and curiouser I thought.

So I lifted off the lid, and thump thump went my heart.

I squealed with delight.

A gift. From a blog reader. A friend.

Made especially for me.

And now I may tell my children, those born, those unborn, those no longer here, that dreams can come true. And I'll send them all my love on the wings of an angel. Or rather, in this case, a dead bird.

Lovingly crafted into a necklace just for me by the incomparable Vicki Pyle who got tired of reading about me wanting a necklace made out of dead animals.

Sometimes you wake up thinking the world is just a little bit blah. And then sometimes you open up a box and a bit of magic is restored to your universe.

I hope everyone's February 29 is filled with a little magic. Even if it's not the taxidermic kind you can hang around your neck to gross out your kids with.

My new necklace is going to go so well with my gopher feet earrings! 

My husband is going to be THRILLED!!