1. Last Saturday, I drove the older three children to Lancaster, PA to spend the week with my parents. They were excited, my mom was excited, and even my dad was slightly enthusiastic to teach them gun safety and drive them through his hometown. The next day Tony and I took Teddy and Fulton to…
Lots of excitement this week, plus I saw my shadow getting out of bed this morning so I declare winter over. My shadow, my rules. Moving on to some quick ones. 1. I sent my oldest two on a bus to Washington, DC last Friday for the annual March for Life. The rest of us…
This didn’t start out as a special needs blog. In fact, I still don’t think of it that way, though lately it’s been a running theme. But a few years back, I decided to open up more about that aspect of our family’s life. I thought by sharing a bit more on the blog, I…
My final post regarding special needs parenting is inspired from a status another SMA parent posted on Facebook a few months ago. This father was very open about his struggles to maintain his faith. He was mentally keeping track of two columns, and the column for tossing aside what little Christian faith he had left, contained the…
I remember the first time Fulton asked me if he would be able to walk when he was an adult. I was getting him ready for bed, when BAM I was hit between the eyes with his innocent question. I remember answering him in a matter of fact way, “No, you’ll always need a wheelchair.”,…
It happened every time I took my family out in public; stares, open mouths, finger pointing, awkward conversations and personal questions. And then my fourth, and soon fifth, children added their wheelchairs to the large family traveling circus and things got even worse. I’m hardly an expert in how to properly act around disabled people,…
I know I said I’d be writing about this stuff in August, but, this was a slow week and when inspiration strikes, you gotta go with it. When I get emails from other special needs parents they often mention how alone they feel. Many times, I’m the only other person they know raising a child…
Saturday morning, we all woke up early and I think the excitement was contagious. A photo posted by Kelly Mantoan (@kellymantoan) on Apr 30, 2016 at 5:50am PDT Like many second graders this spring, Fulton Ambrose received his First Holy Communion at a morning Mass surrounded by a packed sanctuary of friends and family….
Last night our family attended a Halloween party at Dave and Buster’s organized by our local MDA chapter and sponsored by IGT. If you’ve never been to a Dave and Buster’s it’s basically the Colosseum of arcades with a restaurant and bar, and for Monday’s family event, they whipped up a huge buffet of kid friendly foods like sliders, pigs in…
Thanks to all the readers, new and old, who have stopped by over the last couple weeks to check out my posts about Spinal Muscular Atrophy and how it affects our family. I asked Facebook if there were any additional questions I should answer and I got one I wasn’t sure how to answer and…
Despite feeling like I’d written everything I had to say about Spinal Muscular Atrophy, I decided I did want to add one new post, based on a response I gave to a question on Jennifer Fulwiler’s radio show. She wanted to know how I could choose joy during the darkest times in my life. What…
Living life as a devout Catholic, one who feels that everything the Church teaches applies to your everyday life, is hard. At best, we are misunderstood, our decisions considered backward or misguided. At worst, the world can be unaccepting and hostile towards those who choose to make sacrifices and hard decisions based on matters of…
Spinal Muscular Atrophy Awareness Month will permeate Seven Quick Takes this week, not with depressing statistics, but, in keeping with yesterday’s theme, by featuring seven individuals who are giving SMA the middle finger. Instead of laying around and being miserable (as society might expect), they are out kicking a$$ in their respective fields and giving…