Got Milk?

Thanks for the encouragement everyone, it helps a lot. I've also found some new blogs recently about parents dealing with bigger issues than Skyler's and I remember to be grateful that his problems are not as bad as they could be. While I know at the same time there are people thinking "I have it bad but at least my kid isn't blind!" this makes me laugh, in a good way. If we can make some people feel less bad about whatever problems they have well that's good. I imagine that I could be sitting across from someone else whose kid has different special needs and both of us could be thinking "well, at least my child doesn't have her child's needs." I think this is simply because we grow accustomed to what we have to deal with every day. And yes, some people have more things to deal with in a day.

Moving on, today I went to Baby & Me. It's the same group I started to go to when I was 8 weeks pregnant with Skyler. You can keep going up until your baby is a year old and then you have to find another group, but since they don't have childcare yet, and Skyler isn't as mobile as most toddlers his age the group co-ordinator (who knows us well) said she'd make an exception. I had to reregister and fill out the forms for the little whatsit and its due date. In the beginning of the group we all sit in a circle and introduce ourselves and talk about our due date/babies. Since most of the people are new since the last time I went I was straight forward. I told them about the little whatsit, and then I said "You may notice my son's eyes cross, that's because he's legally blind." I did this up front right away before anyone had a chance to question/stare/point & gossip.

I got the questions after everyone had settled down and was started in on the snacks. Luckily since I had been upfront people weren't afraid to ask questions in a respectful manner. And it saved me time having to explain it to people one at a time as they showed interest. I think it helped that I was direct, matter-of-fact and I don't have a "poor baby" attitude about it so they didn't seem to show that either. It was nice to go back to a group with other moms, and this time Skyler showed a bit of interest in the other babies. He was really well behaved as usual. And the best part of all, I got milk coupons. I can't have "normal" milk because I'm lactose intolerant, and the milk I buy has the lactose broken down already but it's about $5 for a two litre. So milk coupons = free milk = awesome.

So that's what's new with us. I hope you are doing well.