Welcome to the November Blanket Tour

Monday, November 01, 2010

Today is the first day of November. Before we know it Thanksgiving will be here, a day to celebrate family. We at WOW-Women on Writing are celebrating family all month long with a WOW Blanket Tour. Each day a different blogger will be posting their thoughts about family. We have a few dates left, if you’d like your blog to be a part of this month’s Blanket Tour contact Jodi at jodi@wow-womenonwriting.com . Today we’ll hear from our featured blogger Chynna Laird author of Not Just Spirited: A Mom’s Sensational Journey with Sensory Processing Disorder.

Chynna Laird started as a loving mom of four who knew there wa

s something more to her daughter’s behavior than just being “spirited”. Eventually her daughter’s condition found a name: Sensory Processing Disorder. Chynna found herself thrust into the position of becoming an expert on SPD. First, to help her daughter and second to educate the public. Chynna has penned three books about the topic: I'm Not Weird, a children’s picture book; At-Home Strategies for Managing Sensory Processing Disorder: A Guide for Parents, a resource book about SPD; and Not Just Spirited: A Mom’s Sensational Journey with Sensory Processing Disorder, a memoir of her family’s experience.

Each time you post a comment at one of the blogs on this tour you enter to win a copy of Chynna’s book!

The list of blogs participating follows Chynna’s post.

Job Well Done

Chynna Laird

I remember watching Oprah a while back for one of her Angel shows—you know, where she helps make people’s dreams come true? She helped this one single mom of three kids who was jobless and almost homeless find a job, got her a furnished house, bought them all new clothes and a new car. Before introducing the woman Oprah said, “I believe parenting is the toughest job in the world. Imagine how much more difficult it would be to have immeasurable hurdles to get over on top of the regular parenting stuff. It seems so unfair. But there are many parents going above and beyond the job of regular parenting—no matter how high their hurdles—a

nd they should be commended for that.”

The significance of Oprah’s words didn’t hit me until I had my own children. Being a parent is the hardest job in the world. You are completely responsible for the well being of another life—that’s a lot of responsibility and, also, a little scary. And when your child has higher needs, it can be even more overwhelming. Depending on the severity of your child’s needs you’re not only worrying about the basic needs of food, shelter, clothing and nurturing but also therapy, nutrition, assessments, diagnoses, different sorts of professionals to organize treatments with plus coverage for all of that.

We aren’t just worrying about whether we can get our kid that Hanna Montanna backpack she wants so much but more if we remembered to put the medication she needs in her school bag or which aide needs to work with her today at home or school or biting our nails in anticipation of when the phone will ring next with another test result, assessment report or the school needing our help. We are more than ‘just caregivers’ we are protectors, teachers, ambulance drivers, pharmacists, counselors, advocates and we do it all on very little sleep or concern for our own needs. The job is hard, long, unappreciated, under paid, emotionally draining and frustrating…but you know what? It can also be the most rewarding experience.

We appreciate all the little things in life because those little things can often be very difficult for our kids. We applaud the things that most others take for granted, like being able to swallow a bite of food or picking up a toy or uttering a single word or even just making eye contact. We get to see the world from different perspectives and learn that there are many different ways of doing a single task. We learn to have tremendous patience as something that may take me two seconds to do may take my child 10 minutes and that’s okay because he’s trying! And

we learn to appreciate life so much more because we know that it can be much more difficult for our kids or, more devastating, shorter than we’d like it to be.

Yes, our jobs can be frustrating, overwhelming and extremely emotional some days but I know I wouldn’t trade my job title for the world. Now we don’t all have Oprah knocking on our door offering to buy us a new house or a car. But she’s right about one thing: These parents do often go above and beyond the duty of ‘regular’ parenting and should be praised for their never-ending, tireless efforts.

And it is to those caregivers I say, “Thank you. Job well done!

Check out what writers have to say about parents, children, and everything in between. We hope you find information, inspiration and a few chuckles. And remember, we’re still looking for a few good bloggers for this month’s Blanket Tour!

Nov. 1 – The Muffin

Nov. 2 – Mom Blog