looking beyond

In yesterday's IEP meeting, it came up about all the play dates at our house. We're lucky because we live so close to school, I explained. It's convenient for kids to walk home with us and for parents to pick their kids up from our house instead....

The regular and daily social interaction as we are walking to and from school, walking the dog, walking to town, playing outside, and the continuous stream of play dates is probably the single most important part of Belac's development. And living in this house makes us realize we can help people. Working parents who are late to pick up, call and ask me to take their kids home with them. We've also taken kids very early in the morning, who then later walk to school with us.

There were years that I could not look beyond our own problems. I was busy trying not to drown. We were stretched and overwhelmed in every which way. But things are better now and we are in a much different place. It means that other people can depend on us and I engage over other topics. It's not that we still don't have needs, we have them. But we can look beyond them and try to help others with theirs at times. That is a great place to be.