Faith's Mom's Blog

When I had asked Faith a while back what she wanted to do for a graduation party, she told me, "a day at the park."  I knew it was a little risky planning an outdoor event in North Dakota (even in May). It wasn't all that long ago we still had snow on the ground. Also, it had snowed a tiny bit and the temperatures hovered around freezing just the weekend before.  I planned for the park anyway and prayed for perfect weather. I figured if it was cold or rainy we could move the event indoors somewhere. I am so glad we didn't have to do that, though, because the park was a great place to have Faith's graduation open house. I wasn't anticipating, however, just how perfect it was going to be.  The weather was absolutely perfect without any humidity or more importantly, without any wind. Even when it did rain for a brief spell, it came straight down and we stayed dry underneath the shelter. The cake was the perfect size and was all eaten up (along with the extra doze...

A snowy Century Ave. Last Tuesday at this time, most of North Dakota was getting blasted with a historic blizzard that lasted 3 days. We have experienced blizzards before, but this was probably the worst most people in the state had ever gone through. For me, it brought back memories of the catastrophic blizzard that occurred at the beginning of April in 1997. At that time, I lived in Fargo.  What made that storm so bad is that many parts of the state had already received 100 inches of snow throughout the winter. That wasn't the case this year, as the central and western parts of the state have had severe drought conditions. While most people were thankful for the moisture this blizzard brought, it didn't come without its challenges (especially for the ranchers who were in the midst of calving). The good news is, the storm was not unexpected. As a result, people could make preparations in advance. The most I needed to do to prepare was make sure we had plenty of groceries and ...

Just recently I was able to go away for the weekend - for fun! For the first time in 18 years, I was able to travel to another city, stay overnight, and not have any doctors appointments or procedures. And what made it even better was going with my sisters!  Faith was well-looked after by respite care. She even had a friend come over to visit and her grandparents, too! Of course getting away did not come without a challenge or two.  The day before leaving, as I was cleaning the entire apartment and getting ready to pack, a staff member at Faith's day program told me her feeding pump was not working. I only had an hour before I had to pick her up so I cruised down to our DME provider and asked if I could get a loaner pump since hers was not working.  Unfortunately, they no longer carry the type of feeding pump she uses, so I needed to get a whole new system. This required me to learn how to use it and then make sure Faith's respite staff and her day program staff was going...

I can't believe I am the mother of a graduate! It seems I have waited a long time for this. At the same time, however, it has come very quickly.  I still very vividly remember the days of walking her to school from our apartment building to Centennial Elementary. She had some wonderful teachers, but when she was in 4th grade, we decided to homeschool her.  There were definitely a lot of positive things about homeschooling. One was that she didn't tire so easily so she could focus more. The other is that she didn't catch everyone's germs, which meant she was sick less often.  Another benefit of homeschooling was that I could give her one-on-one attention. Faith's biggest goal was to learn how to read. It took a long time, and although she can only read simple words and very simple sentences, she exceeded expectations  One major drawback of homeschooling is that she missed being around other kids. It didn't help that she is an only child. When I found out about I...