What about Mom?

You know how kids are - always the last to thank their mothers!

My mom is an amazing woman who has lived a challenging life. But she has always, always, always made it very clear to all of us, how much she loves us. As a parent, I believe that is the best thing she could have ever done.

We grew up on a farm and my dad wasn't as involved in the care of the kids as Mom and I were so it kind of became "us against the world" while we balanced the demands of life.

Now that I'm 35, I'm amazed at what my mother was juggling when she was my age.

My parents divorced six years ago and then my dad died two years ago. They had separated many years before that but it still hit us all very hard when he was gone.

While we don't always talk about it, one of the parts of raising handicapped children that is most ornerous is dealing with the financial side of things. They may have medicaid or medicare, state and/or federal funding and some kind of disability income. But it is never enough. They need 24/7 care. We need vacations. They need bars installed in bathrooms so they don't fall down. You spend money on rubber sheets and new bedding because of accidents. Clothes and personal items, getting pizza, going to doctor appointments (where you have to take off work) and the day in and day out of having to make breakfast for someone else, pack their lunch, wash their clothes and drive them to school or the bus stop.

My mom handles most of the financial stuff now. I did it at one point when I had Angie and its maddening. How Social Security determines what amount each person should get based on the household income and expenses is fairly illogical. We moved and our rent went up but Angie's Social Security income went down because the change in rent was seen as a 'gift of money'. Huh? Yeah I don't get it either. It took the involvement of an elected official to straighten out the payments.

Of course its all worth it. Mom and I feel like pieces that were missing are back now that both Angie and John are home. Each day (and today makes a week I think) that John wakes up dry is a little internal 'happy dance'. He went to bed without fighting again last night which I'm so thankful for. Its odd that his antibiotic would have affected him that way but apparently it did. Angie went to bed only a few minutes after John last night and she was still happy (Yay!). (We have to stagger bedtimes because Angie is 'older' and since John is so much needier, its one way we can show her that she is 'special' too.)