21 Ways Special Needs Moms Are Killing It at Motherhood

I recently read a hard-hitting article on Elite Daily about how young, cool, millennial moms are killing it at motherhood. What actually struck me were the responses this article generated — ones from “regular” moms, like my friend Stephanie Sprenger, who are also killing it at motherhood in their own way.

I decided to jump on this “killing it” bandwagon and write a response of my own, giving a little shout out to my particular brand of motherhood: The Special Needs Mom.

So, with a little help from my friends, here are 21 (and we know there are about a billion more) Ways Special Needs Moms are killing it at motherhood on a daily basis:

1. We’ve learned to keep our cool even in the most intense of situations:

2. “Make it work” has become our life motto because adaptation is the name of this game:

3. Obeying  the “suggested age range” is for weaker-minded women:

4. We’ve taken fashionable accessorizing to a whole new level:

5. We can pack for a trip to the hospital with our eyes closed (which might actually be a good idea given we probably aren’t getting any sleep at home and for sure won’t be getting any in the hospital):

6. We spend more time trying to make the doctor’s office seem fun than millennial moms spend in tattoo parlors:

7. And we’ve become experts at turning incredibly complicated medical information into reader-friendly Facebook updates to keep friends and family in the loop:

8. When we say our kids are attached at the hip, we sometimes literally mean it: 

9. We can add “matchmaker” to our long resumes because we rock at picking out perfect best friends for our sweet babes:

10. Our awesome kids are outside the box, so we’re constantly thinking outside the box:

11. Our homes look like one big therapy session, and we’re actually kind of proud of that:

12. There is nothing we won’t try if it means giving our child a chance to experience something they might love — no mountain we won’t climb, no ocean we won’t cross:

13. Life has taught us there are so many things we cannot control, so when we find something we can control (like a healthy, delicious diet) we control the heck out of it:

14. We’re raising the world’s most compassionate siblings:

15. And never taking anything for granted: nothing, nothing, nothing, never, ever, ever:

16. We know all too well how fragile this life is. Every single second, every single breath is a gift:

17. In between therapy sessions, doctors appointments, more therapy sessions, homework from therapy sessions, IEPs, cooking those amazing diets, fighting with insurance companies, finding the paperwork necessary to start the fight with the insurance company in the first place, researching new diagnoses, researching treatment options for new diagnoses and scouring Pinterest for new home therapy ideas, we still know how to make time for ourselves and live it up a little:

18. Part of what makes all this killing it possible is we have partners who are also killing it:

19. And we have an amazing village full of other special needs moms who are killing it too (it’s most likely a virtual village, but that is just fine; we’ve worked hard to find each other, and virtual villages are still villages!):

20. One of the beautiful things about the villages we’ve cultivated is the way we love each other fiercely in the hardest of times:

21. We haven’t just accepted this unexpected life we’ve been given — we’ve embraced it, big time. And we look pretty darn beautiful doing it, if we may say so ourselves!

What did we miss? Share your “killing it” pictures with us online using the hashtag #SNmomkillingit.

Follow this journey on I’m Julia’s Mom.