Yesterday I walked out of my 4-1/2 year old daughter's parent-teacher conference flooded with emotion and feeling like I was going to cry. Again. Happy tears though. She will complete her first year in the "special ed" program in the local elementary school.
This is not your typical parent-teacher conference. As we talked (both parents, the head teacher and speech therapist) conversation led to stories which led to laughing, crying and hugging all the way around. She has made amazing progress this year - AMAZING - through this exceptional program, and along the way she touched everyone's hearts. This is work that matters and every victory so very hard earned.
I had not realized I held a fear that putting her in any program might change who she is.
I hope to reach others out there who are having a similar experience or know someone else who is. Although everyone's story is unique, we all have the same questions: what does it mean when your child deviates from "normal"? What does that mean for you as a parent?
Friday, June 1, 2012
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Hello: Just a bit about my profile picture: it was taken in Marysville, Washington, a small town along the Columbia River, which defines most of the Washington-Oregon border. In Marysville there is a Stonehenge replica, I'm leaning against one of the stones.
I like this picture especially for the land and sky background dotted with windmills. I grew up in this type of a landscape in eastern Washington in the 1970s and 1980s. There were no windmill farms at the time. Nearly all my friends' parents were in the nuclear industry, either actively generating energy for western Washington residents, or involved in alternative energy research, which included other nuclear technologies besides the standard (which was at the time non-recirculating water-cooled fission.) The non-nuclear alternative at the time seemed to be solar, but not so much wind.
I like the juxtaposition of these elements in the picture: Stonehenge, one of the older human scientific inventions (still under debate, one theory was Stonehenge was used for astronomy) with one that changed in my lifetime - the focus on alternative energy going from nuclear to wind.
-Karen Takatani
I like this picture especially for the land and sky background dotted with windmills. I grew up in this type of a landscape in eastern Washington in the 1970s and 1980s. There were no windmill farms at the time. Nearly all my friends' parents were in the nuclear industry, either actively generating energy for western Washington residents, or involved in alternative energy research, which included other nuclear technologies besides the standard (which was at the time non-recirculating water-cooled fission.) The non-nuclear alternative at the time seemed to be solar, but not so much wind.
I like the juxtaposition of these elements in the picture: Stonehenge, one of the older human scientific inventions (still under debate, one theory was Stonehenge was used for astronomy) with one that changed in my lifetime - the focus on alternative energy going from nuclear to wind.
-Karen Takatani
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