Writing about life, motherhood, disability advocacy and more.

Guest Post

Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Hey guys! Just wanted to share a guest post I wrote at WhatToExpect.com about coping with bad news at an ultrasound appointment. I was honored and excited to be asked to write a piece for them and hope it’s helpful for someone out there. If you know anyway going through a difficult pregnancy, someone...

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Back Yard Spruce

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Last summer I did a little back yard spruce and I realize I never blogged about it. I wanted to call it a makeover, but really it was pretty minimal. So it’s a spruce. After all we are just renting this home and can’t do any major changes, nor do we want to spend the...

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Special Needs Spotlight: Max

Friday, June 21, 2013

Hi! My name is Kami and I am the mother of three children – Max is five, Maude is three, and Olive is 19 months. We began to have challenges with our son Max when he was 15 months old. He had two grand mal seizures while on vacation. This led to a hospital stay...

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Summa’ Time and Why Do Girls Want To Be Saved?

Thursday, June 20, 2013

It’s summer and in a way things have slowed down, but there also seems to be a lot going on right now. In an effort to be on top of things I’ve created chore charts, purchased craft supplies, I’m organizing a weekly church playgroup, have a community calendar of fun things to do and have...

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debbyJune 20, 2013 - 4:34 pm
oh, i think so many gender traits are more inherent than we give credit for. we started with two little girls and when we found out our third was a boy, i didn't think much of it, and didn't really think i'd see many differences for a few years. kids are kids, right? wrong. he was a boy from the get-go. he plays differently, he treats random things like cars long before anyone had shown him how to play with cars. he is just different from my girls.

and my girls surprise me similarly. right after i had my second, i found my oldest trying to nurse a stuffed caterpillar because we didn't have any dolls in the house (i believe this is the point where my mother-in-law started insisting that we buy her a doll). my girls constantly do feminine things that i know they did not learn from me or my husband or from anyone else, for that matter. they are still little and have extremely limited media exposure, so i know that it's just part of them. and yes, that includes constantly wanting to be saved.

i will say (because this comment wasn't long enough yet) that the other day my daughter said something about legos only being for boys and i had a really visceral reaction, followed by a long talk about how girls can build and do engineering-oriented things just as well as boys. so there are things that i'm not willing to let slide, just because they are little. ReplyCancel
Amelia MurdockJune 20, 2013 - 6:56 pm
I read a study saying that the number one thing women desire in a relationship is security (for men it was sex). I think this relates to the damsel in distress idea a bit. Security is a very important and good thing for a female (or anyone) to have– I mean, biologically it was VERY important and day to day issue to have a a man create a secure place to have offspring because having children was the females main focus. Finding security in a relationship could be a version of "being saved" and I think that's okay. I think it's OK for partners to rely on each other for things (such as security)– as long as it's not codependency but, rather an interdependency.

http://www.mygrandestadventure.com ReplyCancel
Astrin YmrisJune 21, 2013 - 5:42 pm
I used to work with children, and I can tell you there's nothing gender-specific about pretending to run from monsters or needing "saving"– or for that matter, making and wearing necklaces. If you clocked how long every child in the center engaged in which behaviors and then figured out separate averages for the girls and the boys, you could show that there's a gender-based play difference.

But it's kind of hard to definitively eliminate social learning from such results. Studies have shown if you ask people to rate a baby or toddler's personality traits from a video, the results will be predictably affected by whether they're told the child is male or female– regardless of the the child's actual gender. We start trying to nudge babies down the "right" path very early.

I strongly agree with you that it's nothing to worry about! Play is play. Well, unless the child is reluctant to engage in an activity because they think it's off limits for their gender, as in the Lego example.

After the Duplo years, Legos do seem to be marketed as a male-only preserve, don't they? The recent development of "Legos for Girls" sets only underlines this. The very existence of a "for girls" product line strongly implies that regular Legos are thus NOT for girls. Just sayin'.ReplyCancel
Amanda RayeJuly 12, 2013 - 4:04 pm
My boyfriend's mom refused to show her daughter any of the Disney Princess movies when she was a kid. She's now 16, model pretty, doesn't feel the need to wear makeup, keeps saying she doesn't want to get married and that she never wants to rely on a man for happiness. Instead of going right to college next year she's taking a gap year. She's going to work in an orphanage in Africa. She's fearless! The thing that impresses me the most is her killer confidence. She does everything for herself, not to impress anyone. All her friends are the types that are beyond obsessed with their boyfriends and constantly working out and wearing pretty clothes to impress boys, which was more like me.

I was a Disney Princess fan as a kid too and I feel I came out okay without the "dire need" to get married as a way to be saved. But my friends and I joke often about "finding a rich man to take care of us." All in good fun but this post made me start thinking about it. Thanks! ReplyCancel

Homemade Vegetable Broth

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

When it comes to all things fitness it’s no secret that I worship at the church of Jillian Michaels. I’ve talked about her videos before and I still love them. Fast and effective work-outs. (Think 20 minutes but super intense!) I checked out her Master Your Metabolism Cookbook a while ago and loved almost every...

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Miss Iowa

Friday, June 14, 2013

Hey ya’ll. Spotlights will be back next Friday…in the meantime many of you sent me this emails telling me about Nicole Kelly, the newly crowned Miss Iowa. She has a limb difference! Regardless of your opinion of beauty pageants, I think it’s great to see a woman with a prominent disability in the world of...

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Fake Plastic Arms: An Homage to Prosthetics

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Yesterday I wrote about the decision to step away from Lamp’s prosthetic arms for now. It’s the right decision and I haven’t even thought twice about it. I will however always treasure those little arms. I loved both of the vintage floral fabrics used to decorate her cute little arms and I always used to joke...

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