Life can be hard and the weeds can be tall. A few thoughts on how to look at weeds in our lives and see the beauty that lies beneath.

Man, halloween can be super stressful, but I'm hoping these few tips and strategies can make the festivities fun!

1.) Let your kiddo choose their outfit and try it out before the night of trick-or-treating.

2.) If your child is easily scared, talk about the scary things and remind them it's not real and you are there to help keep them safe. Also, go when it's light out to help with making it less scary.

3.) Take a picture of your child in their costume in case they get away from you. Also, have them wear some sort of lighting feature or place reflective tape on their costume.

4.) Exchange candy for books, toys or another non-candy reward.

5.) Get to bed at your normal time. This helps to reduce the chances of having a few hard days.

I hope this helps make your halloween successful!

Good morning! I wanted to share a few things we are working on in our home. The summer has been hard with some different behaviors popping up, and we have decided to take a step back and focus on three important disciplines: Respect, Obedience and Self-control. I talked about ways we are doing it and the focus is not only on Colten's behavior, but our own!

We love the beginner character cards from September and Co. They are a great way to help our kids learn character. You can purchase them HERE

Episode 17 | Dr. Edward (Ted) Maynard, MD

June is Congenital Cytomegalovirus (cCMV) Month, and I was so happy Dr. Maynard had time to chat with me about all he and the Colorado cCMV group is doing to bring change and awareness in Colorado and hopefully nationwide.

Dr. Maynard recently retired after 25 years in primary care at Iron Horse Pediatrics in Colorado Springs. He earned his MD degree at Harvard Medical School and did his pediatric residency at Boston Children’s Hospital. He has served on the AAP Colorado board for the past 12 years, and currently serves as the Chapter’s President. Ted has been a champion on issues including tobacco control, healthcare finance, and congenital CMV infection. Loving retired life, you can find him hiking, skiing, rock climbing, mountain biking, or doing anything else that involves the outdoors.

1 in 150 children are affected by cCMV, but only 9% of women pregnant or thinking about becoming pregnant have heard about CMV. This is devastating because so many children are born asymptomatic and then later in life have health issues and parents are left wondering why. The medical community believes educating women on CMV is burdensome and puts undue stress on the mother. What about the burden and stress on mothers of children born with cCMV? Education is necessary in the medical community as well so the diagnosis of children is not missed.

I hope you enjoy this informative interview with Dr. Maynard. If you'd like more information on cCMV and what is happening in Colorado you can click the link below. I'm so grateful for everything the group is doing.

Resource: ⁠cCMV information in Colorado⁠

Also, one of the mothers of the group, Megan Nix, wrote a book Remedies for Sorrow: An Extraordinary Child, a Secret Kept from Pregnant Women, and a Mother's Pursuit of the Truth. It's a beautifully written book! You can also listen to this short video of her speaking on why she wrote the book: HERE

Episode 16 | Ashlynn (Colten's Sister)

It's sure hard to get a lot of talking out of a 17 year old at 9:30 in the morning, but I hope you enjoy this short interview with Colten's older sister Ashlynn.

She is a blessing to him and us. She loves him so well and is such a wonderful advocate for him.

Siblings of children with disabilities and special needs carry the load in different ways and there needs to be support for them as well. Their life looks different than they expected and sometimes it can feel like the world revolves around the sibling with the additional needs. Often times they are left disappointed when they have to leave an event or activity early due to their sibling not being able to handle it. It's important as parents that we recognize these things and try to make time to listen and support them well. I also believe it's important to make one-to-one time and schedule events that you can go to without the other sibling. Sometimes that's difficult though due to the difficulty in finding appropriate child care. It's a hard balance sometimes, but it's important to recognize all the dynamics with a household with a child with disabilities or special needs.

Photo credit: Carly Mitchell Photography

Episode 15 | Sarah + Brooklyn

Every time I put together a podcast episode, I'm so grateful for the people I have met through this journey with Colten. Every single person is truly amazing and a blessing to us! Sarah and I met at a class Children's Hospital offered for 18 months to 3 years old for Deaf and Hard of Hearing children getting ready for preschool. It was a great group of teachers and parents. I loved being a part of the group and we have kept in touch with so many families.

Sarah talks us through Brooklyn's journey and how she is raising her daughter culturally deaf. I learned so much from Sarah and I hope you do as well. A couple take-aways that I hadn't thought of for parents raising a deaf child. One, child care is pretty much non-existent. Think about how many providers are fluent in ASL? Second, although Brooklyn has had many great hearing teachers that have taught her with the use of ASL, Sarah has seen the most growth in Brooklyn this year in a class taught by a deaf teacher. Her language has grown tremendously. It just shows how important being connect to the deaf community is for children.

I wanted to clarify one of the topics we talked about. I loved how Sarah says her daughter didn't fail her hearing test, she passed her deaf test. Once a child has gone through the new born screening, they are referred to an audiologist for an ABR. An ABR is auditory brainstem response-this shows the doctors and parents how the hearing nerves and brain responds to sound. It is usually a 3 hour test in which the baby needs to be sleeping soundly or sedated if they are older.

Sarah is a wealth of knowledge, but her biggest advice for parents, who parent a deaf child, is to connect with deaf adults. She also recommended these resources below:

-Deaf Individuals-greatest resource

-Influencers on social media: Raven Sutton , Troy Kotsur and Language Priority to name a few

-Deaf Organizations: Colorado Association of the Deaf, Colorado School for Deaf and Blind, Rocky Mountain Deaf School

-Through the Rocky Mountain Deaf School, they have Youtube resources as well, and one amazing literacy program is with Jenny Jamison

Photo: Cali Gale Photography

Episode 14 | Sara Kennedy

We first met Sara when Colten was first identified with unilateral hearing loss. She helped guide us through many decisions in the beginning when we were weighing options of equipment and set us up with early intervention. Sara later connected us with families of "Deaf Plus" children- is the reference to the child’s hearing status combined with additional conditions. We are so grateful to have met Sara and been a part of Colorado Hands and Voices.

Sara is a mom of four children, including a daughter who was late-identified following a homebirth. She enjoyed a career as an occupational therapist, but resigned a year after her daughter was identified so that she could help her with language leaning – and while expecting child number 4. She went to one of the first Hands & Voices conferences in Colorado, and raised her hand as a volunteer to edit their four-page newsletter. She had several volunteer and paid positions in El Paso County and statewide, eventually becoming the Director of the Colorado Chapter of Hands & Voices through last Feb 2022. Today, she continues to edit the Hands & Voices Communicator (now an international newspaper) along with many other activities from grantwriting to training and serves as the Co-Chair of the Colorado Infant Hearing Advisory Committee. Sara has a special interest in practical ideas that close the gap for late-identified kids and their families.

She was a lead author of the Parent Safety Toolkit for the O.U.R. Children’s Safety Project, a co-creator for the Virtual Waiting Room, coauthor for the manual Bridge to Preschool: Navigating a Successful Transition, past editions of the Colorado Resource Guide and Parent Funding Toolkit, has written or presented on navigating the IEP/IFSP system, siblings, Eight Reasons to Say Yes to EI, why families move, the decision process regarding cochlear implants and transition from high school. A favorite presentation last year was Introverts Can Be Great Leaders. She reads, hikes, refinishes furniture, and skis when she can.

Contact her at Sara@handsandvoices.org.

Kid Power

O.U.R. Children's Safety Project

Photo by: Melissa Wuertele Photography

Episode 13 | Joni + Beckham

Joni and I met through flowers. She is an amazing artist and florist in Idaho. When we first met, I was interviewing her for a magazine I worked for at that time. We talked mostly about being business owners and moms and how hard that was at times. Somehow we got to talking about of boys and found out they were very similar. She and I do a lot of things the same when it comes to how the boys eat and other natural remedies we use. It was so nice to have a friend that I felt like really understood me. Our friendship has grown over the last 5 years and I'm so grateful for her!

Her interview is straight from her heart and gives such wonderful insight into how we can help our kids naturally, but sometimes we need medical intervention as well as God's intervention.

I hope you enjoy this interview as much as I did.

Resources:

Book: Healing the New Childhood Epidemics by Kenneth Bock

Supplement: Magnesium