This is Monkey and Bean.

Hi. Welcome. Glad you came. Hope you brought coffee. We like coffee. We need coffee. Our kids never seem to sleep at the same time.


Moving on.


Let's start with the basics. We are The Mom and The Dad. We have two kids.

Bean.

And Monkey.

Both of our kids have disabilities, disorders, things, quirks, whatever-you-would-like-call-its of varying degrees. It makes our lives a bit hectic. To say the least. Years ago, when Monkey was first diagnosed, I, The Mom, turned to caringbridge. Later, I found blogging. Here was this instant community. This bond. These people. I was in love. I have made friends through blogging. I have celebrated as children across the country reached milestones. I have cheered parents on as they tried out new strategies. I have received parenting advice through blogging. I have learned to troubleshoot a cochlear implant through blogging. Any bit of information I needed was right there.


But the one thing I noticed? Nobody, nobody, talked about the other stuff. Their failures. The times they tried everything, and their SID kid still ended up knocking over an entire rack of nail polish at CVS. Or the times when they called every single member of the implant team they could reach, ranting and raving like a lunatic about the craptastic equipment their child received, only to be informed by their oldest child that their mother-in-law accidentally got the cochlear implants wet. Nope. Nobody mentions these moments. We all just disappear for awhile, reemerging later with some vagueness such as,

"Timmy has had a rough few days. Pardon my absence."

Their loyal readers, their friends, are quick to jump in with condolences, advice, and whisperings of their own rough days. But nobody is quite willing to say,

"I just couldn't quite get it right."

Or even worse.

"Today was a big, fat FAIL."

Why? Because we are scared of being judged? Because we are scared of people judging our children? Because we are scared if we say one negative thing about our children, people will assume we don't love them fiercely enough?

Well, we love our kids. Our kids do a lot of really cool things. They have overcome obstacles that I never imagined they would. On top of that, they are smart. And funny. And pretty. And I am not just saying that because I am The Mom. It's true. These kids of mine? They rock.

But some days we struggle. Some days are messy. Some days we are overwhelmed. Some days is it is just plain hard to figure out the best way to raise these two kids. We do the best we can. We laugh at the rest.


This blog? This is the rest. These are our failures. Our moments. Our life.

This is Monkey and Bean.