An Amazing, Inspiring Blogger Award

I have been nominated for The Very Inspiring Blogger Award.  Really?  That’s pretty awesome! (I was going to say amazing. I guess I say it a lot.  I never realized until my 2yr old started saying that she thinks everything is amazing. I also learned that I say apparently a lot. I probably shouldn’t tell you these things because now whenever you read my stuff you’re apparently going to notice every amazing thing I say.)

I was nominated by an inspiring, very funny blogger The Zookeepers Wife. She writes at www.tzookeeperswife.blogspot.com and don’t forget to type in t and not the, because if you do it will take you to this VERY strange blog about Nazi’s and gardens and zoos.  Unless you’re wanting to learn about those things, then by all means go there. I myself like to learn about Nazi’s and zoo’s, not so much gardens. I kill everything non-breathing.  And you can’t count that photosynthesis sciencey crap. Even though it involves oxygen.  It doesn’t involve lungs so it’s not real breathing. I kill things without lungs.  Although fish don’t have lungs and I’m not really good at keeping fish alive either…maybe I need to rethink my argument?

Somehow I have gotten a WAY off track here.

Check out www.tzookeeperswife.blogspot.com.  She’s funny!

The rules of the award:

1.Link back to the person who nominated you. (Check!)

2.Post award image on your site. (Umm…can I just post a picture? Maybe I’ll have Ginger draw me an award and I take a picture of that.)

Okay. Ginger decided that rather than draw a picture, she wanted to be IN a picture.

3.List 7 random facts about yourself. (Well I think I’ve already given you several random facts about myself.)  1. I get off track INCREDIBLY easy and I am a serial plant/fish killer.  2. I say words like: apparently, definitely, amazing, totally, holy crap, and incredible….(many more) WAY too much. 3. I love to use LOTS of exclamation marks and CAITALIZATION! It makes me feel very powerful and amazing!!  IT’S KIND OF LIKE YOU’RE LETTING ME YELL AT YOU IN YOUR HEAD. YOU LET ME DO THIS AND YOU CAN’T EVEN SAY NO!! Unless you just stop reading. I guess that would be bad.  You could just be like “Forget that! I’m not going to take this abuse anymore!” Maybe I shouldn’t yell in people’s heads so much? 4. I like to read to learn. I’ve read about Nazi’s, zoos, other people’s lives…. 5. I can’t believe people actually read what I write or tell me that they like it or find it inspiring. That’s just crazy to me. I was terrified to start writing about Oli and the beginning of her life. But, I needed to say it. I thought that if I told people that I was sad in the beginning and thought that it was unfair, you would hear “I don’t love my daughter.” I never wanted anyone to ever think that I didn’t love her. Of course that was ridiculous. You never heard that at all. You heard “This is hard sometimes.” It’s just something my head told me.  I have since learned that I can’t fix the shite in my head with the shite in my head.  6.  I love my kids, family, and friends more than anything in the world.  I feel so incredibly blessed and lucky to have such a supportive, understanding, and amazing circle around me.  7. I just wanted to tell my story because I thought that it might help someone else feel less alone and thought that I would be mostly talking about Oli.  Little did I know what the story was really about and all that I would come to learn about myself.  My main goal still remains to help someone else.

4.Nominate 15 other bloggers.

5.Notify the bloggers that you nominated them.

First is my very good friend and a very inspiring mother, Lacey.  Her son is autistic and her humor, courage, determination, and attitude have always made me want to be better. http://www.johnnysjourney123.blogspot.com/

Next is my other good friend and inspiring mother, Bridget.  Bridget has a sweet little girl with Oli’s same eye condition. Faith has bilateral anophthalmia and is partially deaf. Bridget and Faith’s journey has been long and hard, but their spirituality and incredible resilience is remarkable. www.superbabyfaith.com

My friend Jill also has a daughter, Ella, with bilateral anophthalmia. She is just the absolute cutest little thing you will ever see. Jill and Ella always find the humor in life and that is one of the most inspirational things I’ve found. http://ibfamlife.wordpress.com/2013/02/21/running-well/

My friend Heather has a son with bilateral anophthalmia and he is also deaf.  She is super inspiring. I had the opportunity to finally meet her and her son, Orion, in person this weekend at the Deaf-blind Symposium.  www.hexwit.blogspot.com
 

Another blogger that I found when I started my wordpress site (I’m in the process of switching all of my content to www.mommyhasissues.com) is Charity.  Her daughter has Cri du Chat. http://mydanceintherain.org/ 

Charity has 7 kids! And she’s still alive! She’s not even in a straight jacket…or more importantly…she’s not in jail. Which is where I would probably be if I had 7 kids.  Yep. Give me 7 kids and I will go to jail.  I will be there for murdering my husband. If that’s not inspiring, I don’t know what is?

My friend, Amy, just started a blog about her life raising a son with ADHD. She is also funny and inspiring. http://www.themommabearchronicles.blogspot.com/

I don’t personally know the woman who writes this blog, but I really like it and enjoy reading it. She has a daughter with an undiagnosed condition.  http://phoebeholmes.com/

This is another blog that I really like. She actually writes two and I’m going to nominate them both. Her first is about her life as a mother. http://littlestepsblogdotcom.wordpress.com/

And the second, she writes about authors and where they lived and died. It’s really interesting! http://wheretheylivedandlie.wordpress.com/
 

This one is written by the inspiring and very funny Lexi Sweatpants.  She has a daughter with Down syndrome and a son with autism.  http://www.mostlytruestuff.com/

 

I know that it’s not 15 and I’m sure there are some that I’m forgetting, but I can’t think of any more right now. I will come back and add to my list. 

By the way, if I nominated you and you don't want to do it...that's totally fine. I have been asked a few times to do this kind of thing, one of them was a Liebster award? and I never did it.  I just don't want to be a bloghole and blow them off. I really do appreciate the nominations.  Not that you would be a bloghole or unappreciative if you didn't want to do it.  Oh dear...this is not coming out right.

I never did it before because I just don't find me all that interesting. It's hard for me to tell you random things about myself. I can, however, tell you all about my misery, total sadness, wanting to curl up and die, poop stories, throw up stories, boogers...and many more. Now that I write it, I should have had nooooo problem filling out the questions!

Thank you so much Tamara for nominating me. I really appreciate it.  

I can now add a new word to my list of words that I say too much: inspiring.

 

 

Can You See Me? I'm Here In The Darkness. (Part 4)

I spent the last few days attending the Blind Cafe and then the 2013 TX Deaf-Blind Symposium. Because of these two events my perception of Oli and some preconceived notions of her abilities/disabilities have completely been swung around and turned on their heads. 

Where I have focused a lot of my time on what she cannot do because of        or what she will not do because of         .I am now seeing exactly what she is capable of and what is possible if I give her the chance.  Although I really felt like I had given her lots of opportunities to explore the world and chances to communicate, after talking with blind adults and listening to experts in the field, now I feel like. . . Holy shit! I still have been regarding her learning opportunities in terms of what I see as limitations because of her disabilities.

While I was sitting in the darkness at the cafe a striking realization came to me when the wait staff started answering questions.  I hate to say that when I first see a person with a disability, I see a disability.  I'm not supposed to see that right? Because my daughter has a disability?  But I still do.  I don't like that about me and I really try not to.  I realized that one of the things that was so wonderful about listening to the blind adults speak in the cafe was. . . I didn't see a disability.  I couldn't! And it was great.  All I heard were intelligent, funny, nice people speaking. And then I started thinking about what an advantage they have over all of the rest of us.  They honestly get to know people in a fast, genuine, real way, bypassing all of the visual, judgemental, nonsense that sighted people have. 

Always aspiring to be one of those "good" people who doesn't judge people by what they look like, what they're wearing, or how clean they are (although I'll bet blind people notice that one even quicker than me) I suddenly started thinking of Oli as. . .lucky. I stopped viewing blindness as something I would never want for her and although I still wish she wasn't, I started looking at all of the good things about blindness.  Like seeing people by way of her heart and judging them by the truth in their words and the honesty in their voices.

I had a moment when I was sitting in the dark, listening to the band play, that I was overcome by sadness.  Silent tears poured down my face as I sat there thinking about how hard it was. Walking around not knowing where I was going, trying to find my food and not knowing what I was eating because nobody told me.  Tasting food that I HATE and not knowing if I had a drink. Wanting to wipe off my hands and not being able to find my napkin.  I felt helpless. I felt alone. 

 

But as I sat there crying quietly so no one would know, I started to recognize that feeling. I remember spending a lot of my time feeling that exact same way in the first years of Oli's life. Lost and alone, crying silently in the dark.  I welcomed that feeling like an old friend and greeted her with open arms without even realizing who she is.  Who she really is... is my own self pity. My own fear, ignorance, and judgement. 

I opened my eyes, dried my tears and sat up straight in my chair. 

NO! No more!

I will not allow this twisted friendship to continue! I will not welcome you into my heart!  I will not pretend anymore that you will stay for a short visit and then let you live on my couch for years!

You Miss. . . are no longer allowed in my front door.

I am not helpless, weak, alone, unheard, unloved, or in this by myself.  More importantly, this is not about me. 

 

This is about Oli and she is none of those things either.

 

(Thank you for reading about my experience at the Blind Café! If you're interested in learning more or want to know if the Blind Cafe is coming to a city near you go to www.theblindcafe.com The End.)