Don't Take Any Wooden Nickels

Thanks for following me from my old blog http://cottontales2.blogspot.com/ When I was growing up, every time I left my house my mother would say "Don't take any wooden nickels." I never thought about it, it's just what she said. At one point when I was a teenager I asked my mom what it meant. She said, "Don't take any wooden nickels."HA sounds about right. But, what she meant was don't just take anything from anyone. Don't take polished crap, you know? I've brought these words with me, I think of them every time I leave my house even now, and yet, I haven't taken them to heart at all. Having kids with needs,

makes me feel like I am living half a life sometimes. Like other people are just living it up with kids, that attend soccer and swimming with little or no effort on their part. Every day can feel like a herculean effort, and I just want to scream "WHY IS THIS SO FREAKING HARD!" But, there isn't anyone to scream that to, the truth, is not the pretty faces smiling on facebook, the truth is that we are all secretly screaming this at least some of the time. I'm not living half a life, I have no reason to feel ashamed that I have two kids with challenges, and yet I find myself, terrified of letting people know that. I want to have three happy healthy kids, and blog about what an awesome mom I am . I also know that I can choose words that express just that, because that is as true, as me being a mom struggling to figure out how to parent outside of the lines. I want to paint the pretty picture that other people paint, but I find my soul screaming just tell the truth! There will never be a pretty bow on my life.. or yours. We can try to make it ok, but that is not the point. Life is messy, and hard, and beautiful. It's about learning, that everything you think matters, doesn't. For me it means loosing every dream you ever had and finding that the love doesn't change. It also means releasing all judgment, especially the judgement I put on myself. I can't blog about our trips to the zoo, or the big soccer game without telling the whole story, because I think our story, like yours, is important. I think people are looking to read about people like them, that make mistakes and learn, and then make the same mistakes again. That is my truth, always learning and relearning the same lesson over and over. Screaming about the unfairness of autism and the amazingness of my kids. I can't talk about things that make sense, because I would just be handing out wooden nickels. They may fool some people, but they aren't worth much.