Do any parents feel this way at times?

As parents you want the best outcomes for your children. Starting elementary school is a big milestone and you start to wonder all the things parents typically think about when their child is starting kindergarten.  What about those parents raising children with unique needs. What runs through their minds? We have our twins in special education preschool at the moment and they will be graduating to kindergarten next school year but what scares me as a parent is if they will be accepted by their peers. Having a child or two with an invisable disability can be tuff when facing the social world and society. How would you bring inclusion into understanding and how will you prepare your little for full day school?

Meltdown or Tantrum?

When a smooth transition changes into controlled chaos

Never-ending thoughts of a special needs mom

Choosing to stay home with my boys was my choice the best choice I have ever made.  I have been fighting the urge to get back into the workforce but finding an early childhood job with no degree at this time in life isn't easy and on top of managing a full time teaching job with children who have multiple therapies,appointments, preschool and the unknown  can be very tuff to manage when living hours apart from any specialist appointments, therapies and hospitals that understand your child's development and health needs. Living in a small town has its perks,but what if you are raising a child with a chronic illness and or special need what would you do to make sure your child gets the best care? What would you do if you are tired of traveling hours for a 15 min appointment? Alot of families deal with these questions and make those drives to receive the nesseccities for their children.  Have you ever contiplated moving away  from family to live closer to better health care options  for your child? Do you feel it was the best decision?
A couple months ago I was offered an early childhood teaching position in Appleton WI & the scheduling works great for my family. A four day work week at a daycare is rare. Plus the Fox Valley area is improving and it happens to house the Wisconsin children's hospital as well as more opportunities of inclusion and good special education education.
I have been educating myself thouroughly on my options and the area. So many emotions and decisions.
#momlife #parenting #specialneeds #mommyfriends #boymom #lifewithtwins #positivevibes #deepthoughts #moving #lifewithboys #twins #bloggermom #instablog

Facing Ignorance

Managing stress (good read) 👇👇

http://www.thesensoryspectrum.com/manage-stress-ill-disabled-child/

Check this article out👇👇

http://pattch.org/resource-guide/no-typical-birth-nicu-experiences-and-post-traumatic-stress-disorder-ptsd/

Preemie Power Goes Along Way In This Household

PREMATURITY AWARENESS DAY
To you Nathan and Noah who have showed me what its like to be strong when I had no other choice but to be. You to have showed not only me but others what resilience truly means. You have showed us a whole new way of life that I am blessed to be traveling on with you two. I may of not got to experience a typical pregnancy that comes with the joys of having newborn babies or be able to experience the joys that comes from being a new parent at first and all those things that come with those experiences and I can tell you this boys prematurity took away those things from me, but Prematurity showed me a blessing as well. It gave me a new sense of life and gratefulness, a whole new positive perspective on life and it has opened up my eyes to the things that others may never understand unless walking through the same path. I am truly blessed.
We have your 5th birthday coming up in a few months and this is a big milestone to celebrate because you guys deserve it. To think back at seeing both of you guys at 1lb 12 oz and facing all the negative statistics and working hard to show us you guys can accomplish all those things and not give up a fight is truly amazing in my eyes. I love you boys.

When transitions become a chore

Nathan and Noah have ADHD. For the  longest time we thought both boys were Autistic. We received many refferrals to doctors about it possibly being Autism. Turns out we were completely wrong. We knew what ADHD was. People would joke with me that I also had ADHD at times. Turned out that I was diagnosed with Adhd as well, along side my twins. See as parents we knew Nathan and Noah have a developmental delay we just didn't know Adhd was it's new friend and that Nathan and Noah have a form of ADHD due to brain damage from prematurity. After finally seeing a neuropsych up in Wisconsin we were able to take this diagnosis and understand it in depth. With the ADHD came a diagnosis of anxiety and possible ODD.As parents we were releaved that we found an answer and now can move forth with finding therapies and interventions that may possibly help our boys well being.  See the issue with Nathan and Noah is they are very academically smart. School hasn't been an issue just yet so the off days show more at home. School is structured and with being home the twins ;like all kids are in their safe comfortable zone. We were relieved by their diagnosis because now we can educate family members,strangers and ourselves. My boys impulsive behaviors are not negative behaviors and their were times where I felt my children's behaviors  were all because of bad parenting on my part,were just learned parenting techniques that didnt work for my boys. It felt like a lift was taken off of our shoulders. That maybe we were parenting the best we can for these two boys.  We just needed the extra coping skills and education to get to the best place possible for Nathan and Noah. We will always be judged while sitting at Applebee's when both my twin attention goes off into who knows where after 5 min of waiting to be served our food.  We will always have comments from others about how I can't parent my children or how naughty they may seem. At least as parents we can understand the ways to help them thrive. ADHD  doesn't just define who these boys are.Adhd doesn't have to be a negative thing to own up to. People with ADHD process things differently and that's okay in my book.
 Nathanand Noah will be referred to behavior therapy and as parents we will be learning coping strategies to help all of us work together to give the boys the best outlook on their education goals and life. The video above this, is myself showing what we use for routines in our house during transition times. For our family, our morning routine is always the hardest! We have good days and off days and implementing picture cards to our days  always have helped us ease into a transition. If you follow me on Instagram @raisingnathanandnoah we have posted a live video of how putting our clothes on can be a long tiring chore and sometimes the picture cards will not work for Noah if he gets into one of his moods. Today before school,was one of those days. It took  about ten minutes to help him just get his underwear and pants on. My advice to you is keep using a picture schedule though being consistent is a big big help when it comes to rasing children especially for Nathan and Noah. Routines will eventually start feeling less than a chore.   You can see my children's attention spans our very short at 4.5 years old. IMmplementing these cards have become a good way to focus on a task at hand.

Finding Medical Care for Your Twins in A Rural Area

Finding Medical Care for Your Twins in A Rural Area

Is This Normal? How the NICU Impacts Your Emotional Health

Is This Normal? How the NICU Impacts Your Emotional Health

You Are Not Alone

A while back I had the opportunity to talk with a good friend of mine about what life is like raising children with special needs and how living in a small town makes it harder  to find the resources available. Most of the time parents are traveling back and forth to get the best care for their children. I am no stranger when it comes to traveling to get the best care and I am sure we are not the only ones out their that feel this way.  15 minutes specialist appointment, but an hour long car ride to get to the appointment can be overwhelming and financially irritating at times. Living in a smaller town with less resources can make a family feel like they are being flipped flopped back in forth through their local health care system and therapies and referred out to bigger hospitals. Holding a job can also be a big time struggle for families raising children with unique needs as well.  The list keeps going on and on. Let me introduce you to my good friend Brenda Calderon she has a son who is Autistic.  a wonderful family but the struggle is real and its always good to have mom friends who understand you.

My Mental Health is Just As Important As My Physical Health

#MENTALHEALTH
Depression and Anxiety are not always sad days. Everyone deals with their own mental health differently. Be an open ear and do your best to just be a shoulder to lean on. Mental health needs to be talked more about its a serious part of a lot of individuals and families lives. My name is Lorrie and I have had social anxiety my whole life which has turned into severe anxieties and Depression after my twins were born severely premature. If i was able to understand the warning signs a lot better back then and actually took those little paper tests seriously while in the hospital, I may of have found help sooner than later. I also feel that males should be given the same choices opportunities and understandings after any birth especially a traumatic one. Prematurity and the Neonatal Intensive care unit can be a very traumatic place to be at. Many times its compared to a war zone with everything that occurs in that unit and what families are put up against, the decisions they have to make right on the spot, constant beeps and alarms, seeing other families go through it and seeing life and death all around you. I would not wish that on my worse enemy. Life after the Nicu for some doesn't just stop after discharge for others it keep going beyond that. For us, we still fight those beeps in our heads and our twins still fight, but in other ways now. I wasn't able to cope with my mental health for the past 4,5 years because of the struggles we faced. Doesn't make me any less of a person for that. My point is before you drop someone because you cant understand their reasoning, or tell someone they are being over dramatic, or get upset that they cant be their for you all the time. YOU MAY NOT EVEN KNOW THAT YOUR FRIEND IS STRUGGLING . Love them always no matter what , support them and be their shoulder!.

Prematurity Awareness Month Goes A Long Way For Our Family

Since we have a lot of new followers on our page I want to introduce you to Nathan and Noah who our my inspiration on this page and my hope. I have been very open about my twins life from birth till now, for many reasons, not just because I think they are adorable little men,but because our life isn't typical to those most looking in. Secondly, because they fought to live. Looking at them without asking me,you would think they are healthy 4 year old boys. Yes you are right, for Nathan and Noah they are the healthiest right now. You don't know their health struggles though. Chronic lung disease and weight issues. Asthma severe ADHD Anxiety and possible ODD. You don't know between the two of them we almost lost them multiple times and that they have had heart,eyes, feeding, hernia tubes, oxygen, picks and pricks. You don't know that a germs can put them in the hospital easily and Winter is our families worst enemy. That routine procedures like removing tonsils for example, are more extreme and that we always end up in the pediatric intensive care unit just in case and that back in July our family witnessed 20 seconds of complete fear and confusion all because one twin froze and stopped breathing in our arms . Longest 20 seconds. But now we wait for more testing. You don't know, that Nathan and Noah had over a handful of blood transfusions and fought collapsed lungs and lung infections. All of this that you don't know is just the tip of what these two  boys have been going through. 6 months of their lives in a hospital followed by multiple specialist appointments, therapies, and hospital stays. They are just like your children in many ways but they have special needs that are unique to them. Why I feel the need to remind everyone is to keep hope, and positive vibes not just because I feel that our families adventure could leave others just like us with hope as well but,because I know I was and still am that person that needs the mommy groups and second opinions and to feel that my family isn't alone in this adventure. Most importantly November is Prematurity Awareness MONTH and Prematurity still plays a big important piece in our lives #awareness  #inclusion

Effects of Prematurity

Below is the link to our story in honor of Prematurity Awareness Month 2017 
http://community.today.com/parentingteam/post/life-after-nicu-effects-of-prematurity-after-coming-home
☝☝

In honor of prematurity awareness month I decided to give readers a little insight on how our family's life was effected by prematurity even after leaving the hospital in 2013. Thanks to TODAY PARENT for advocating and including preemie parents into this typical world.

Welcome Again to Our World

Today I decided it was a pretty good idea to talk about what life is like being a young mom with special need twin boys. My twins are now 4.5 and life has been pretty good,but it hasn't always been this way. In my first post, I want to be able to give you a little glimpse into my world and what it's like raising two unique boys,but first we need to go back a few years.

  Back in 2013 I went into preterm labor and I ended up having Nathan and Noah  15 weeks early. I was only 23 at that time and I never expected for what had happen to actually straight out happen!   Nathan and Noah we're born at 1lb 12 oz and struggled the whole 6 months in the NICU.   My significant other and I had no choice to be strong and we had to put everything we hoped for or wanted on the side burner. We had to make choices on the spot, face statistics  and then find hope to keep pushing through. Nathan and Noah eventually came home ,but life was different now. These two boys had many life saving interventions, surgeries, and medical equipment hooked up to their bodies for a total of two years, Personally, the world kept moving,but for our tiny family our world just became an adventure. An adventure that the outside world couldn't just understand. Prematurity plays a big part still till this day for our family, especially for our twins even at 4.5 years old.  Nathan and Noah have chronic lung disease, severe asthma, severe ADHD and anxiety And possible ODD and failure to thrive.  As a family we face many hardships, fails and wins, good days and bad days.

  I want this blog to be an inside on what it's like raising twin boys who see the world differently. I want this blog to help others feel like they are not alone when it comes to their children. I want this blog to be an open invitation to allow others to educate the ignorant.  

I am filled with so much knowledge and experiences because of being blessed with raising these two boys and I have and felt the ignorance. Inclusion is so important and I want to be able to show the world that living a unique life is more than beautiful. 

Throughout this blog I will be talking about special needs, routines ,what life is like for us, how self care and mental health play a big part in raising unique children and also the hardships that's come.  Basically, a look into my personal adventures as a mom living in Nathan and Noah's  world.