A Different Boat

It's starting to feel like Wes has all odds stacked against him when it comes to learning to communicate. Putting aside his unknown level of cognitive impairment, it seems like a miracle is necessary for Wes to ever be able to communicate at more than a 6 month old level. Right now it feels like an acomplishment when we are able to comunicate in simple ways like smile = good or cry = bad. I'm trying to be grateful for what we have because I recognize that other families would love that much communication. However, this primitive level of understanding each other will not feel like enough 6 months from now, a year from now, etc. I'm hopeful that Wesley will learn to talk and read and write but it seems like he has a tremendous number of obstacles in his way. It's just not "fair" that he will have to work so hard. Wes has a hearing impairment so he should learn sign language, but he also has both a vision impairment, making it harder to teach him signs, and d...

I believe that although people may have a natural tendency towards optimism or pessimism (or realism as most pessimists like to call it), you still make conscious choices towards one or the other. When things start to look grim, the optimist tries to find the bright side where as the pessimist imagines the most horrible outcome possible. Optimists cling to hope while pessimists cling to fear. It's all a mind game. After having a totally normal pregnancy turn traumatic at the last minute, I've lost my ability to be an optimist. Once your fears have become reality, the part inside you that convinces you that "the odds of that happening are ridiculously low" or "that won't happen to us" vanishes because you've already been that one in a million. Since the unlikely has already happened once, you no longer believe that it won't happen again with another child or with another situation with this child. Every car ride, doctors appointment, bad day,...