With a non-verbal child you become accustomed to watching out for signs. Sé feels pain the same as everybody else, but he doesn’t know how to express it, so we watch him and mind him and do our best. Right now, he’s got something brewing. How do I know? Because he’s being nice and helpful….
Back from the summer holidays, back from Brussels, back to school for the kids, back to college for me & the husband. The return from my annual trip to Brussels heralds the end of the summer and the start of the new school year. I had great plans for the summer – projects to complete,…
I am a great one for not seeing the woods for the trees. I remember feeding my firstborn hour after hour every night, reading about cluster feeding and thinking, “Jesus, I’m so lucky my baby doesn’t cluster feed all night long”. I’m thinking this while cluster feeding, all night long, for months on end. My…
The discourse around the most recent referendum has been yet another exercise in soul baring to beg for access to basic human rights. We did it for marriage equality, we did it for repeal the 8th and now here we are again, telling our stories about the inhumane ways we have been treated and neglected…
I do. I care a lot. I care 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and I’ve been doing that for the past 12 years. And tomorrow, I am being asked to vote in a constitutional referendum where it would seem our government doesn’t care at all. As a campaigner for the rights…
As my son gets older, he finds ever more ingenious ways to keep us on our toes. Over the years, he has filled the oven with random stuff and turned it on. He has chopped blueberries with a chefs knife. He once painted his entire head black – face, neck, hair, even the insides of his…
We had a significant birthday in our house this week. Our son with Down Syndrome turned 12. And what a 12 years it has been. I cried in the lift heading up to the labour ward – I knew something big was about to happen. A couple heading out with their newborn, thinking I was…
My friend and I had 24 hours away together to celebrate Nollaig na mBán. We’re both musicians, we have both travelled extensively and we have both lived large lives. And now, we’re both parents to children with special needs. In a previous lifetime, 24 hours away would have meant eating, drinking and partying on…
These teeth. They have been with us for a very long time. My son didn’t have any teeth at all until he was almost 3 years old. His first tooth was a big, back molar. Then, gradually, teeth started popping up all over the place, some at the back, an odd one near the…