Leading the Blind

Many of you know that we are Boston Terrier lovers! We have two males, Steel and Kal, who are litter mates. We have had them for about 2 years now and got them as puppies. About a month ago, we noticed that Kal was holding his left eye closed a lot. Boston's are known for their bulgy eyes, so this wasn't the first time the dogs had gotten too rough and hurt an eye. Steel and Kal fight like brothers. Ugh! An old pic I have of these 3! This is rare because they never hold still! haha!  For about a day, we watched it and wiped it with a warm cloth, figuring it was probably sore and would be fine in a day or two. We got up the next morning and Kal was holding his eye open more, which we thought was a good sign, but we noticed that it had a blue haze over it. The haze reminded me of my dog I had when I was a kid living at home with my parents. Ginger lived to be 13, 14, 15 years old (we aren't exactly sure because we found her and picked her up as a stray) and she develope...

Many of you know that I recently decided to take a break from social media. For several reasons, I thought it would be healthy for me to step back for a little bit, but I also feel like God was calling me to a time of "fasting." I felt God calling me to set aside some of the distractions that life has been throwing at me so that I could hear His voice better. I didn't know at first what I would be fasting from, I just knew that I needed to. So, I prayed and waited to hear from God. Social media was the obvious choice fairly quickly. Even just being on Facebook recently has really been difficult for me, as some of you may know. There has been an influx of negative and hateful comments on pretty much every single thing I post. I always joke that I could post "I love chocolate chip cookies" on Facebook and someone would be highly offended and tell me how terrible of a person I am. It has always been a joke but what makes it funny is that tinge of truth running ...

1st day of school!  I'm sure many of you have already seen some social media posts about it, but I wanted to take some time to really dive in and address Christian's upcoming school year and what it's looking like so that you guys would all know what's going on. For all of our friends who keep up with Christian and his progress, I figured you would be interested and concerned to know, and I am happy to share. :)  I also wanted to answer some questions about it that I thought you guys might have, because it is something new to us and foreign to most people. The majority of folks do public school, so this isn't the traditional route. Sooo.... YES! We are homeschooling! So, the obvious first question is "Why?" Well, there are a couple of reasons that I chose to homeschool Christian this year. Probably the most compelling reason was how bad Christian's last school year ended up being. We were driving 2 hours each way to get him to school, leavi...

I've received a few comments recently on Facebook that are....thought provoking. One proclaimed, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" The commentor was referring to Christian's face and how I could be so bold as to post his photo for other people to see. She literally demanded that I explain to her why I hadn't had Christian's eyes sewed shut, and informed me, which is news to me, that I was exposing Christian to infection and putting him in danger. Then she accused me of withholding surgeries from Christian so as to create a "shock value" of his appearance. It's amazing how much strangers think they know about another stranger's medical condition and health, but it happens. This isn't the first and only comment I've received along those lines, and I'm sure I'll hear it a few more times in my life.  Obviously people like this are uncomfortable with Christian's disability, or disabilities in general, or maybe just differences among ...

It happened today. He asked. He asked me the question I've been anticipating, dreading, since soon after he was born. "Mommy, what happened to my eyes?" I froze for a second. Then asked him to repeat what he had said. I wanted to be sure I had heard him correctly, but really, it bought me a few more seconds to think of my response and process what he had just said to me. His question wasn't sad. It didn't carry the weight of the heaviness that I feel sometimes. It was a simple question that he simply wanted an answer to. It was a question full of curiosity, not pain. I swallowed the knot in my throat and tried to figure out if Christian had actually asked me about his eyes or if I had misunderstood. You know those moments of panic where you suddenly have the ability to think 47 thoughts in a matter of five seconds. I was there. I don't think I could love this boy more I had decided long ago that I wasn't going to mention Christian's d...

Photo I took to 3 weeks prior to my last day of school!  One year ago this week, I completed my first day of testing for the bar exam. The nerves were unreal. I really didn't think I would be that nervous. It takes a lot to get me worked up, because once you've seen your child lying in a hospital bed almost dying, not too many things can top that, ya know? But man, I was was the wreck that day. I remember the relief I felt when it was over and yet there was still this dull little ache of nervousness  because I knew I had to wait until October for my results. So here I am one year later. And I'm just going to be honest with you guys. I suffer from an extreme case of impostor  syndrome. I made it through law school facing odds that most anybody would call challenging, even without law school thrown into the mix. I remember going from the NICU to law school for several weeks during my first year. Raising Christian while doing law school was definitely to...

Life doesn't have to be perfect to be joyful. Photo Credit: FireFly Photography in Murfreesboro, TN That concept seems so simple, but when you really think about how it applies to our society, it's easy to see how we as a society really struggle to understand and apply it. Our society is FULL of commercialization that tells the listener that they simply must have that newest, latest product, that they need to look like this model, that they need these clothes, this makeup, this body, this hair, this car. Then, they will be happy. They do this because it makes them money when we go purchase these things in an attempt to fill that void and make ourselves happy, right? What iPhone are model are we even on at this point? I can't keep up. "Keeping up with the Jones" is a real thing. We envy other people and what they have. If only I had a house that nice, a family like that, then I'd be happy. I have found myself even doing it in mom circles. I wish my...