When my son was first diagnosed with fragile X syndrome (5 years ago!) I spent hours on the internet. I was searching for blogs, Instagram hashtags, google images of grown children with fragile X, answers, support, anything. I wanted to know everything. I wanted to know what our future looked liked. I needed to know. I needed to see that it would be okay…

Today is your fifth birthday. Five is a big one, too. I remember turning five and holding up my whole hand while I proudly exclaimed, “I’m FIVE!” Now you can hold up your whole hand! But that isn’t the only thing that makes five big…

I originally wrote this post 2 years ago but never posted it. I wanted to share it now because I realize how far we have come. If you are new to the fragile X journey, a special-needs journey, or just parenting in general, I hope that this post will give you hope…

We ran out of apples two days ago. Two. Days. Ago. I should know better…

Today was a hard day. The truth is, most days are. Today also happens to mark the one year anniversary of Conor’s diagnosis…

“Call Baapa. Call Baapa. Call Baapa. Call Baapa. Call Baapa.”

Conor repeated this over and over and over (and over and over) while he paged through a book on the living room floor. He was stuck…

We were walking into the Children’s Museum when my phone rang. It wasn’t a number I had saved but it looked familiar. As soon as I realized who the number belonged to, the phone stopped ringing. It was the Genetics Clinic…

Retard. Mentally retarded. Mental retardation. These are not words that you want to hear in association with your child. These are fighting words. You call a kid retarded...you can wait for mama bear to come get you. She will come. And you won't need to wait long either.

There is so much I have wanted to say lately but when I try to type it out, I get stuck. I want to talk about Laine and I want to share all about our summer. I'll get there. Eventually. But tonight I'm overwhelmed and I am ready to share why.

Welcome to the world, Laine!

I had an interesting conversation with some of my coworkers at lunch a few weeks ago. Of course we talked about our kids. My pregnancy came into the conversation and so did transitioning Conor to his new room. Then the topic of potty training came up…

Progress is a hard topic for me to write about. Up until my last post everything I have shared on this blog has been written in the middle of the night when I couldn’t sleep. My mind has an especially hard time shutting down these days and I find myself word vomiting into the notes section on my iPhone at 2 AM…

A rite of passage for any kid with a dog is being able to blame things on the dog. Right? I never had one growing up but I think I could have used "the dog did it" to get out of more than one mess…

My pregnancy? I love being pregnant. I'm the definition of the annoying friend who feels like a damn goddess when she is pregnant and has zero complaints...

Since sharing our story I have gotten quite a few questions. Most frequently, "How did you know?” How did we know? We didn't...

I'm not sure how to describe some of the thoughts that have flooded my mind this past month. It feels like my future is being taken away from me one memory at a time...

Do you believe that your dreams have meaning? Last night I had a dream that Conor and I were in a plane crash...

It's okay not to know what to say. I don't know what to say either. I'm not expecting you to say all the right words. I don't think those words exist...

Basements. Bears. Guns.

You could say that these are fears of mine. Not debilitating, irrational fears or anything...

Perhaps one of the worst things you can do as a new mother is compare your child to all of the other children around you. I am a worrier by nature (thanks, mom) so of course I am the queen of comparison...