Swimming

Swim team practice tonight for Sal.  She LOVES to swim.  She smiles the entire time she's swimming.  Tonight Tommy's Mom and Kyle's Mom sat by me and we engaged in conversation.  Tommy is 11 and Kyle is 15.  Amazing how different our kids are.  Tommy wrote Sal's name today.  Sally can't write at all.  Sally talks ALL day long and Tommy won't utter a word.  Kyle can swim so well that you would not notice a difference at all but yet can't tie his shoes and has trouble with buttons. 

One thing that we as mothers all had in common - problems with people in our lives who think the kids' can be cured, or that they plain don't have a problem, or that we aren't doing a good enough job.  Lord, the advice people give you can really be tiring.  Or the people who shove the sunshine up your butt.  We all had an instance where someone was going to *show us* and turns out they got the lesson.  :-) 

We all have people in our lives who are ashamed of us and of our children.  It's kind of interesting because after meeting SO many Special Needs parents I've determined that we are some of the funniest and most insightful people I've ever met.  It's like the kids bring out the very best in us and seems we've all developed a very wicked sense of humor just to get through it all. 

As usual there was a "typie" (typical - as in parent to a typical child) parent there at swimming who thought our kids didn't need two lanes in the pool.  People like that really push my buttons.  I also love the stares that we get every week by someone in the locker room as I help Sal get dressed.  Both mother's knew what I was talking about.  It's nice to kind of have a bitch session once in a while.  I also got some great info about BHS from Kyle's mom .  And Tommy's Mom was so pleased that Tommy had written Sally's name today.  Made me feel good too.  Sally was pleased to hear that Tommy had thought of Sal at school today.

Swim meet coming up.  Sal got timed tonight.  Backstroke still needs work.  She's SO slow - but she's smiling ALL the way, it's so cute.  The kids all cheer for each other.  Sometimes I feel I'm doing a disservice to her by trying to get her to fit into our world - we should all try to fit into theirs - it seems SO much more pleasant.  :-)