So, I love music playing in the kitchen as I mill about and since I seem to spend the majority of my time in this room, I love the way music makes me enjoy my tasks better.

I seem to go through music jags too! Currently I am on a Doobie Brothers kick. I love the retro feel to it.

And let’s face it, music can bring back memories very quickly as well as bring out emotions. I know we can all hear a song and have it take you right back to a certain place, time or feeling.

So, with that said there is one song that is played in the line-up of songs by them, Another Park Another Sunday, that takes me back to being quite young around 8 or so.

I love this song because the memory with it is pretty calm, cozy and peaceful.

In my mind, I am taken back to a cozy night at home, around the dinner table and the thing I see clearly is that it is dark outside. I see the kitchen window and through it, I see the dark night, the outline of the trees in the backyard and the back patio light shining just a bit.

But there is something about that window and the darkness that made me think a bit more about it. The window was dark but it was a comforting dark and the house was simply quiet. Maybe there was the hum of the TV but that was it. It was like we were allowed to be done with our day.

It was okay to take time to regroup, time to kind of “Be”

Because at that time in the world and in day-to-day life, there wasn’t the continual onslaught of information and input that we have now.

There was just a shutting off of the busy of the day to get to the quiet and time off of the night.

Now, there is NEVER an off, just a different busy. Maybe we aren’t at school or work and seeing actual people but it feels as if we are….all the time. Between all the social media outlets, texting, zoom calls and more, the connection and input simply doesn’t stop.

Ever!

But having a child with special needs has taught me so much about the need for this piece of old.

In my daughter’s life all 24 years of it, we have seen the absolute need for her to have the quiet and the regrouping. For those who don’t already know, Elizabeth is my middle child and has dyspraxia and sensory processing disorder (SPD) and her system requires:

Time to reset.

Time to “Be”

Time to be allowed to end a day

Time to say no to more input

I know so many people who have to schedule a lot in the lives of their special needs child but sometimes it is good to think about the need to schedule the down time too!

To not be afraid to speak to their need for it. Even in the world that directs and commands us to keep going.

Maybe our special needs children are simply showing that, in their need for a built-in stop, they need us to help them find the very life that was just naturally there years before. One that naturally flowed to this quiet point.

I know my memory of the quiet is a soft and good one for my heart.

I like to think we can offer the same to our special children, without fail.

I wish everyone a peaceful week,

Michele Gianetti author of Elizabeth Believes in Herself.

Woo hoo!

Our daughter, Emily, told us that she was planning on coming home for a long weekend. She told us she was set to arrive on Saturday the 12th. (Last Saturday)

She told us she was planning on leaving Monday morning, which would be the 14th.

Well, you don’t have to wonder just how happy and over the moon excited I was to hear this. We said goodbye to her on December 26th and well, for this mom right here, that is a long time not to hug her.

So I last week as I am humming around preparing, getting food ready and everyone is happy, I hear the faint rumblings of discord from our beautiful Elizabeth.

Not head turning discord, but mumbling discord.

Such as her saying ” I guess I am happy Emily is coming home but then I will miss her.’

Or

“Emily is home and then she leaves again and I will be sad”

So as cute and heartfelt as these may sound in print. When you hear them said in an irritated and somewhat angry voice, they are not.

What they are, in my opinion, are a cry for some help in dealing with some hard emotions.

My daughter, Elizabeth, for those who don’t know, has special needs. She has global dyspraxia and SPD (Sensory Processing Disorder) both of which affect her every day. And something else to add to the mix is that she and Emily are so very close. Emily was her voice when she could not speak, her support and her best friend. So life was a bunch of emotions and adjustments when Emily left for her residency.

Sure Emily was in and out of the house for different things she had to do for school, sometimes a month at a time. And this was hard for all of us to adjust to the comings and goings but for Elizabeth this still meant Emily was COMING home again.

Now, it is different.

Now, it is more certain Emily will be away.

But now, Emily is visiting.

Now, the feelings of missing return.

So we had to have some talks last week before Emily arrived.

Some had some pretty big emotions and loud voices with them but we kept talking and helping Elizabeth deal with what she was feeling.

We made plans for how the weekend was to go and made sure she had her normal days as well. Such as going to work on Saturday and hanging out with her tutor a bit on Sunday.

It was tough to get through those layers of emotions but our special needs children are so very aware, so very perceptive and so very full of emotions.

We told Elizabeth something that we have said so many times before but it so fit.

That all the emotions you have are okay. It is what you do with them that matters. So we reinforced this concept again.

The weekend went just great. I will say. We got to hug and enjoy and love.

Just wanted to share that the work is there but we can make such a difference each day for our children.

I wish everyone a peaceful week,

Michele Gianetti author of I Believe In You