Wheelchair stroll.<\/p><\/div>\n

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We managed to fill up those couple of morning hours that feel just a tiny bit like parent purgatory before nap time. Everyone was happy and tired when we piled back in the car. I let my guard down, breathed out the breath that meant I could sit facing forward for fifteen minutes without moving. Cue the turmoil. Something wicked this way comes. They always sense when there\u2019s a perimeter break, like velociraptors.<\/p>\n

Charlie started to cry and I turn to see Cora standing next to him with a book in her hand and avoiding my eye. Jody was buckling in Jonas so she had been roaming the territory. The book was actually only three sad pages from Goodnight Moon<\/em> (the rest had been sacrificed to car rides of yore). But they had been Charlie\u2019s three pages. He had been flipping through them contentedly before Cora\u2019s nimble theft. Here\u2019s how it went down:<\/p>\n

Me: \u201cCora, was Charlie holding that first?\u201d<\/p>\n

Cora: Long pause. \u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n

Me: \u201cYes, he was Cora. Now give that back to him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Charlie continues to cry and point to the book and then sign “more”. From Cora, silence.<\/p>\n

Me: \u201cCora, do not make me say it again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cora: Looks to me then Charlie. She bends down and picks up a toy SUV whose battery died sometime in July. \u201cNo, he pointing to this. Charlie want this one.\u201d She actually reaches around his arm, outstretched toward the book, and plops the SUV in his lap.<\/p>\n

Me: Silence as I get out, climb in the back, give Charlie the book, and buckle\/restrain Cora whose screams reach the heavens.<\/p>\n

Me to Jody: \u201cI hate it when she treats her brother like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jody to me: \u201cThey\u2019re only two.\u201d<\/p>\n

Me: Silence.<\/p>\n

Most of the time the twins hug him and make sure he has his blanket\/toy\/book\/water on his tray. They love to help push him in the wheelchair and walk him in to school. They can be the poster twins for special needs siblings. But man it gets me when they fill his silence with what they want to hear. It seems meaner somehow, willfully ignoring his words when he can\u2019t fight back with his own.<\/p>\n

Just moments before the “incident.” Jonas likes to stay in everyone’s good graces.<\/p><\/div>\n

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I know the stories of the siblings of special needs kids who seem to love in a different way with a more patient heart. I pray for this for the twins every day. But it\u2019s not always Hallmark over here. We get the uncensored version too.<\/p>\n

As I was praying through my anger in the car on the way home from the park (mostly the serenity prayer on repeat), I realized that Cora\u2019s actions were better than mine had been lately. She was treating him like a brother, a brother whom she would manipulate any chance she could get. She\u2019d do the same to Jonas. It was me who was treating Charlie like he was \u201cspecial needs.” To Cora, he\u2019s just Charlie, and that\u2019s how I want it to stay. After all, isn\u2019t that what I plead with the world to see too, Charlie the boy minus the diagnoses? If I\u2019m going to preach equality and fairness in this family, I\u2019d better practice it too…for all our sakes.<\/p>\n

Of course, I\u2019m still going to have to teach the velociraptors to share.<\/p>\n

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Has someone ever schooled you while you were trying to school them?<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We took the kids to the park last week because A) it was fifty degrees and they needed airing out, B) they were out of school and crazy, and C) you can only go to Costco and the mall so much. The actual park experience had been great. I walked Charlie around the perimeter in his wheelchair where he waved hello to every person, bench, and squirrel. The twins ran rampant under wooden tunnels, through …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":399,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[26],"tags":[55,54,17,58,15],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mom-gene.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/IMG_2559-e1482609473176.jpg?fit=4021%2C1532&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8ca5p-6b","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=383"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":575,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383\/revisions\/575"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}