By Kelly Wilton
This isn’t a complete list, and my list is going to differ from your list – because that’s the point isn’t it – we’re all so different and unique. It’s a bit of fun though to take a light-hearted look at ourselves, and you might catch a glimpse of your own family in my little set of points below. What would be on your list? Let’s get it all out there and celebrate exactly who we are, and create the normality of diversity!
- You have 4 different types of chicken nuggets in our freezer – tempura, golden crumbed, cheese stuffed and burger flavoured for a variety of dinner time meals.
- When our kids swear, it goes towards their vocabulary growing count and is met with interest and appreciation from our trusted speechies – especially when it’s used in the right context! We reach a point where we don’t worry if it offends, we are celebrating years of non-verbal, semi-verbal and complex communication with kids who try so damn hard, and we celebrate that!
- Someone is always testing your patience. It doesn’t matter how many kids you might have; someone always grinds your gears on any given day. It could be the one that threw their shoe at your head while driving, or the one who back-chatted you – the only difference is that it might have been a result of many hours of therapy. Strong arm to punch/leg to kick? That’s all the OT/Physio they’ve been doing. Bit of smart-arse talk? That’ll be the 100s of hours spent on speech therapy, thanks!
- We rarely go to family things as a family! Yep, many mainstream family gatherings make us want to poke our eyes out with a fork. End of year break-ups, family centred events, etc, they sometimes just don’t cater to our families and until they do, we won’t go. At times, we really don’t have the energy and simply can’t be arsed, especially at the end of a long year. *side note – Someone just told me it wasn’t the end of year yet, really – I’m done already!
- Our normality is usually found and created within our 4 walls. Many of us love the simplicity that our family home creates, despite the chaos (and yes that’s with all families!) – it’s a place where we can truly be ourselves, no apologies and no justifications to anyone. Clothes are optional!
