I long for an easier life.  I want the freedom to stand in the shadows, to be the wallflower.  I don’t want people to know my name – to know my son’s name – I just want to happily interweave and exist in the world.

That’s one side of me.  It’s the side I have existed inside my entire life, up until becoming Kiran’s mom.

But now?

Because it matters, I want the biggest platform possible to educate and advocate.  If only I could get on Ellen, maybe things would change….

I will continue to write emails and request meetings and start conversations and use this blog and my facebook page as a small but effective platform.  I will continue to make waves and fight for safety and accessibility and just the right for my son to exist in this world.

But it takes it out of me.  I sit here now, completely depleted and holding back tears.

Kiran has made me grow so much, and it has been a challenge every step of the way.  The growing pains are real, guys.  I live so far outside my comfort zone most days, I almost can’t believe I am really doing it.

Even with his preschool teacher and the school nurse – my goodness – oh to be the parent who you meet and then just exchange pleasantries with at pickup and dropoff, who doesn’t ask for anything more or require anything greater from you?

I WANT TO BE THAT PARENT.

Instead, not a single week has gone by without at least one (and often more than one) email being sent to one or both of those people.  I have to.  Kiran doesn’t have his own voice right now; I have to be his voice.  None of it is confrontational – informational, really – but I just wish I didn’t have to.

By the way, today, I had to send one of those emails to his preschool teacher.  Just to let her know he appears to be getting all four molars in at the moment, and because of the increased hand-in-mouth activity, his hands are starting to get chapped so we are trying to deter him from putting his hands in there.  And she responded right away and it was so nice – she just said they’d get some things together to help substitute for his hands – that I really did almost cry.

They are fantastic.  But, I still wish I didn’t have to be that parent.

I *know* I am annoying.  I *know* I communicate a LOT.  I *know* people get tired of hearing some of the same things over and over and over again from me.  I also know I am always respectful and seek to communicate in the calmest, most effective manner possible.  I know that a lot of people don’t know the things I now know, and I know that they matter.

In other words, I know I am going to continue to be that parent.  Every day.  All day long.

For him.