Missionaries

Missionary work is amazing I am a product of it and will be forever thankful for the path it has lead me on.  My husband chose not to serve a mission, we married in the Vegas temple during the time he would have been serving a mission and almost 26 years later I am thankful for the life I have and feel greatly blessed. My children are my all and are the blessings that have come from the choices we made in the temple all those years ago. We are not a perfect family by any means and sometimes we get so held up in the culture of things that we forget these young men and women take on such a life changing choice that we may not hear what they really are feeling or they try not let us know until it is too late and they can’t buoy themselves up to it. 

D&C: 124:49 Verily, verily, I say unto you, that when I give a commandment to any of the sons of men to do a work unto my name, and those sons of men go with all their might and with all they have to perform that work, and cease not their diligence, and their enemies come upon them and hinder them from performing that work, behold, it behooveth me to require that work no more at the hands of those sons of men, but to accept of their offerings.

This scripture couldn’t have come in a more appropriate time and has given me comfort in knowing my boys have served “with all their might and with all they have”. Two days or two years they have faithfully and honorably served a mission. 

Special needs envy??

Is there such a thing as special needs envy? I see myself sometimes looking at other special kiddos and how they are able to do things that my son cannot & feeling a little jealous. Weird to think that we can have a jealousy amongst our special kiddos, right? It is true though. I remember years ago I was sitting in a lesson in church and the instructor was talking about how she had wished her daughter who struggled with mental illness had Down syndrome. The comparison she used was not the best, but the idea of what she said struck me so odd. I had two little boys at that point and I could only think that what she said was so not fair to anyone struggling with a kid who had any difficulties. Fast forward today and I can totally see where she was coming from. How nice it would be to have our son feed himself(teenage boy would like to eat all day long right now), feeding him takes a minimum of 30 minutes at a time. To be able to tell us with his own words what the heck is bothering him, that would be amazing. I could go on and on about the “only if he could’s”, but with that jealousy I know we would not have the amazing things that he has taught us because of what he is. So yes, jealousy happens amongst the special needs parenting life for sure. In the past 16 years of raising Mr. B we have heard it all, “you have been given this child because you are strong” “He only gives you what you can handle”, “I don’t know how you guys do what you do, you are amazing” you get the idea. People really do mean the best when they say these things. Most of the time it would be good to hear “how do you do it?” & I am so thankful when someone says “you guys have it hard, but you make it look easy” because that is the goal. We know we have it hard, no denying it, but when we hear from someone who sees that we are trying and let’s us know we are appearing to make it look like that then thank you!! I am thankfully jealous of what we have and couldn’t do it without the amazing guy  that I have by my side to help make it through each day. 

Traveling the world with our family, well here's our reality folks

We love to go on vacations to many places as a family, but reality is that we cant go everywhere, it is just too complicated.
We recently were able to finally get Braydon on a plane ride. This was the scenario. We flew to go to Disneyland. Most may know this, but in case you don't Braydon has a problem with laughter. It causes him to get upset and start to kick and want to be out of earshot of the laughter. Very hard thing to have such a hard time with since it is such a normal thing for us all to do. So think of being stuck in a plane with someone who has laughed and to Braydon he will wait and anticipate the next laugh so much that he will freak out and want away from that person immediately.(This has been the hardest thing to work with on him and it still is a work in progress) Also Braydon is too big to sit in a car seat on the plane(at least his seat his too large to fit in a airline seat) so Justin had to sit next to him and have an arm around him the entire flight, constantly pulling him up as he would slide down in the seat. He did this for the entire 2 1/2 flight, Justin is amazing, but gosh that stinks because I don't think we could do it any longer than that. Renting a car isn't easy either one that will accommodate his large car seat and wheelchair plus our entire family?? Hotel rooms. He usually requires a his own bed and I found these really cool portable bed rails that keep him from rolling off the bed: Find them here  Then there is bathing him. We use a roll in shower with a special shower seat at home, which is not easily transportable. So trying to bathe super strong 5 foot tall kid is never easy. I say all this but want you to realize that Braydon has seen and done more things in his life than a lot of kids his age, let alone with his disability. We somehow make it work. We have too, we have other members of our family too and need to be there for everyone of them. So traveling with our family is doable not easily but can somehow be done.
UPDATE EXCITEMENT!!!!
We all(7 of us) went to Disneyland in October and Braydon has grown so much that he is able to sit in an airline seat with his feet touching the floor, so he basically sat all alone support wise. Also our check-in gate attendant suggested we take the first row, leg room a plenty no one in front of him to kick their seat. It was amazing!!! This is a total game changer for us. Just need to figure out some of the other items mentioned that would make it a little easier for us when we travel.