Just for Dads

 

Finally a forum for all dads with children with special needs.  I have searched high and low on the internet for such a thing, to end up having one done.  If you know a dad who has a child with special needs, tell them about this, and have them stop in.  Although the title says "Spokane" Fathers Network, my goal is to have this spread out across the nation.  As the facilitator for the Spokane group, and being on the Steering Committee, I think this will be a very good thing for our organization.  

We have topics for:  Friends, Family, Work, Finances, Hospital, Doctors, Sports, Outdoor Activities, Our Kids Accomplishments, A Brag Area and even the Off Topic where we can talk about all other things.  So please, share with your friends, and lets get the Dad's involved!

The week wrap up - on Thursday!

What a week already.  I'm ready for the weekend to start.  As long as tomorrow does not bring any heart stopping moments, all will be well. 

It's pretty hard to work full time and not worry about your family, especially an 8 year old daughter who is unaware of what might be going on around her.  What do you do, how do you react to phone calls when something goes wrong?  You take it in and realize there is nothing you can really do - other than trust your spouse is taking care of what needs to be done.

I got a call on Monday morning, and there was a sad little girl in the background.  She was scared.  My wife informed me Zoe just choked on one of her little toys, but she was fine.  My first comment was "throw all the little toys away - we don't want that to happen again."  My wife and I are in sync, because she had already started doing that.  As a parent, you want to be there for those moments.  You want to make sure everything is ok, and the thought of being helpless is scary.  There is nothing you can do when you are away - and that sucks.  The scary little girl became happy not too long after, when her fear of the unknown left and she got back to her normal routine (minus any small toys). 

We had a small amount of snow fall yesterday, but with the temperature being just right, the snow turned to ice on the roads right away.  Sometime around noon my wife asked if she could drop off some lunch, which was very sweet.  She was on her way to take Zoe to a therapy and was going right past my work place.  I declined, talked for a few minutes and got back to work.  About 1 hour later I got another phone call, and it was one that I didn't like.  My wife informed me she and Zoe were all right, but the car needed a new bumper.  I thought she was joking with me, which we do sometimes, but she told me this was not a joke.  On her way home from therapy, she spun around on the road and slid into the guard rail.  Immediately I asked if she and Zoe were ok, what happened, etc., and just felt like garbage that I could not do anything to protect them from what happened.  They are both fine, nothing happened except to the car (and no one else was involved).  The car is something we can get fixed, but if something happened to them it would be horrible. 

That night after the accident, while we were watching tv, Zoe stood up and started spinning in a circle and said "Wee, Wee, Wee".  My wife and I both laughed for a while and then I asked Zoe "what happened in the car with mommy today?".  She went back to the middle of the room and started spinning in a circle again and said "Wee, Wee, Wee".  It was too cute.  I'm glad we can have laughter at something that happened like the accident.  My daughter cracks me up a lot, and for that I am grateful. 

I have never been a person who worries about things, other than my family being safe.  I don't worry about the future really, for some reason I know everything will be ok.  I don't worry about money (which we don't have), because I remember growing up and being on food stamps and everything was ok.  I don't worry about things much, because I can't change what's going to happen.  I can prepare for things, but whatever is going to happen will happen.  If I worry about things, my life would be different in a way that I probably would not like.  I was talking to the Fathers Network Director about another dad from the past and he gave me a quote that he told that dad a long time ago.  The quote pretty much fit what my life has been like the past 8 years since Zoe was born.  Basically, he told the other dad "don't worry about tomorrow, live today".  I like that quote, because we can't change tomorrow until it happens.  If we worry about it, what would that do to how you live today?

Little girls and daddy

What a great weekend!  Saturday morning Zoe was on the local news with a bunch of other kids.  It is soon the start of Bambino Baseball.  It's pretty awesome to watch your daughter (who you never thought would be able to play any sport) participate in a baseball game.  I thought it was awesome the local news station would do a small little bit on the little league, but thought they might go into more depths about children with special needs playing with the typically developing children.  Oh well, she was on the news, and I was able to get a photo of her with 2 local news people.

After the news, we all went to the local golf show as a family.  I know my wife really didn't want to go, but I was very happy she decided to join us.  I had a buddy who was at a booth promoting the golf course he works at, so we started to make our way there.  Along the way, a very nice gentleman stopped me and asked if we had gotten Zoe her FREE golf club yet.  I said no and he proceeded to take us to his booth and gave Zoe her first club.  It is a driver, complete with head cover.  She was so happy and proud and insisted she carry it around for the rest of the time (we had to take it away a couple of times as she continued to swing it all around and almost hit a few people).   It was kind of funny at times watching her carry it like her best friend.  At times she would put it in front of her, popping it up and down as she tried to walk, which caused her to fall over.  It was hard not to laugh with her, but I managed to keep it under control as the people around just wouldn't understand. 

I can't wait to actually get a ball in front of her and help her hit the ball.  Maybe in a few years we can get out on the course a couple of times.  I think I am going to look at joining up with First Tee when the time gets closer.  I talked to a PGA Tour players wife today who is very involved with First Tee and she told me they would definitely help a child with special needs.  She also mentioned that her and her husband are very active in charity events, and would like to help out with our golf tournament we are putting on.  I hope it pans out.

I love getting kisses from a gooey face, and hearing the words "I wuv ew daddy".  I got a lot of that this weekend, and they always make me warm inside. 

Why is there not much out there for dads?

As the facilitator for the local Fathers Network group ("A powerful voice for fathers of children with special needs"), I have not found a lot of information out there for dads.  Every search I did with Google came back with 95% moms and 5% family related sites.  Not a single one for specifically dedicated to dads!  Well, besides the Fathers Network, but I am trying to find more out there.  Why is that?  What makes dad's so different from mothers?  I don't think there is much of a difference, so I will be undergoing a new task - produce one!  

Over the past 8 months I've had a burning in my heart to get the local chapter of the Fathers Network going in a great direction, and seem to be making the small steps needed.  We have been going through the motions for the past 4 years since I took over, and we have been successful with our progress.  But my heart was not totally in what I was doing.  I would conduct the meetings, enjoy the communication and exchanges of views, but after the meeting was done, I seemed to lose my interest until the next meeting.  The information was valuable, but for me it just didn't affect me like I thought it would. 

I don't know what happened about 8 months ago, but I'm sure it was something Zoe did and the light clicked.  Here is a beautiful little girl, full of love and always smiling, about to start growing up in a society which will treat her differently than most people.  I knew that I had to start making a change, for her, for others that have a disability, and for society to realize what they would be missing if they didn't get to know these individuals.  I know my daughter is destined for great things, and she will accomplish her purpose of why she was placed on this earth.  I owe it to her, myself, and others, to start making changes where I can as a dad.

With all Zoe has taught me in the past 8 years, I know she has a bright future. 

Dad's, we shall soon have a place!

Time to get back to it

What an end to the year, and the beginning of a new one.  Too many things have been going on where you get distracted and don't find time to do any updates.  Lets see if we can get back into the swing of things.

What has happened since my last post?  One thing that I did not post about was Zoe's Grandpa passing.  It was a sad ending to the year.  He was too young to leave us.  Zoe still asks about his, saying "Pa", not understanding he is no longer with us.  It brings a sadness to my heart when I hear those words.  You will not be forgotten Sammy!  That happened before Thanksgiving, so the holidays pretty much sucked all around.  Don't get me wrong, they were fun with family and spending time together, but the fact that my father in law was not with us anymore, well, just sucked. 

I was able to take a few days off at the end of the year, which provided some great times involving snow, a plastic sled and a little 8 year old girl.  Zoe had a blast sledding down the hill to our house, and actually went by herself a few times.  One time in particular she turned a little to the right and went straight into a snow bank.  Her snow pants slipped on the sled and forced her into the snow head first.  It wasn't much, just about 1" of snow on her nose, and she let out the happiest laugh.  Those were a few great days that ended the year just right.

2011 rolled around and we found our whole family pretty much sick for the first 4 weeks.  Zoe just got over pneumonia about 1 week ago, missing almost 2 weeks of school.  She started the year having a cold, where she missed about 3 days of school.  I really hate seeing my little girl act like a bump on a log.  Her face shows no emotion, she has no energy to move and just looks at us with sad puppy dog eyes that need some rest.  When I normally come home from work, she is at the top of the stairs yelling "Daddy, nummmmy" meaning she wants to share my dinner with me.  This is a normal thing that has happened in the past 4 months or so, which is pretty cool.  However, during her sickness, she barely said "Hi" to me when I came home.  I did not like it at all. 

A little over a week ago, I came home from work, and peaked over the stairway wall and there was my little angel with bright eyes, and a cleared up face.  She was getting back to being herself.  Life started to get good again!  The sickness was going away, and my little energizer bunny was getting her charge back.

This past week I have been redoing the website for the Fathers Network, and finally got it finished.  We are putting together a golf tournament to benefit the Arc and the Fathers Network, and the website was in dire need of a face lift.  Now that the site is up and running with the information on it, I can now concentrate on the other things that need my attention (this and some other items).

I look forward to a great year (after such a horrible start).

Time sure does fly

There has been so much that has happened since my last blog entry, I can't believe it has almost been a month.  What's more unbelievable, is the fact Zoe turned 8 years old yesterday.  It seemed like only a month ago when she was brought into this world.  Time has gone by way too fast.

Here is a picture of the kids that came to her birthday party.  What a fun time it was.  We rented a place that does parties, called Jump and Bounce, for a couple of hours.  They have about 10 large jumping toys and slides.  Every kid was running wild up and down the slide, into the blow up maze, and even into the boxing ring pictured here. 

I stopped about half way through the party and just watched in amazement.  Here we had 11 out of 16 kids with a disability, playing with each other and having fun.  For someone to look from the outside, they would see typically developing children.  It was awesome!  I hope for the day, that society does not put labels on our children who have a disability, and accepts them as being the same as them - typical!  That day can't come soon enough.

Happy Birthday Zoe - I love you so much.  You continue to amaze me everyday, and I can't wait for what the future holds for you and for us. 

We never give them enough credit!

It's amazing what our little children know, which we don't give enough credit for. 

Zoe and her mommy just walked in the door from therapy, to find me watching football (what else is there to watch on Monday night).  Dinner was almost ready to serve, and I was sitting in my chair.  2 minutes after they walked in the door, Zoe looked at me and said "Abby", which means she wanted to watch Sesame Street.

Of course there was no way I was wanted to change the channel, so I looked at her and asked "don't you want to watch football with daddy?".  She said "NO" and replied "Abby" one more time.  This actually went on for a few more minutes, back and forth me asking her to watch football with me, she saying no and asking to watch Abby.   I got up out of the chair to check on dinner, and right behind me was Zoe, following pretty close.  I stopped at the counter and 2 seconds later the remote control was placed on the counter in front of me and the words "Abby" came out 1 more time.  I laughed and smiled really big, told her how smart she was and begged her to watch football.  I finally won.

After dinner was done, I got up to put away a couple of things, and Zoe followed me into the kitchen.  There was a pot holder on the counter, and she grabbed it and handed it to me.  She was helping me clean up, which was pretty nice.  As soon as she gave me the pot holder, she bent down and opened the drawer to show me where to put it.  Once again, I smiled and gave her a hug and told her how smart she was.

We sat down to watch a little more football, she was right next to me in my chair cuddling with me.  She gave me a hug, and once again told me "Abby".  I finally caved and switched the channel.  The smile on her face was priceless, and she jumped off the chair and planted herself in front of the tv.  About 5 seconds after sitting on the floor, she turned to me, smiled and put her arms around herself - telling me she wanted a hug.  She was thankful for getting to watch Abby, and I am thankful for such a wonderful little girl. 

Just because a child has a disability, it doesn't mean they don't know what's going on!