The Not-Nearly-Comprehensive History of My Diagnosis

I realized yesterday that for all the talking I do about disability and access and integration and what have you, I’ve said little about my actual disability because agency in sharing that is something disabled people have to work hard to protect. I’ve had to learn how to say, “Ya know, I get that you’re …

Flying With a Wheelchair or Mobility Device

So, a couple of important notes before you read: I'm an incomplete (walking) quad, c6/7, and use a Panthera X manual chair about 90% of the time, always fly with my service dog, and often fly with my young daughter and no other adults. I fly a lot, so the advice below is based on …

When the word “woman” makes you squirm.

International Women’s Day. I’ve never paid much attention to it in the past. In fact, for most of my life, I’ve intentionally avoid anything explicitly feminine. For some women, the idea of normative femininity is fraught with tension and discomfort, even though they identify squarely as women. I’m one of them.

Where is your outrage?

On conservative Christian complicity in the refugee and immigrant ban.

On Being Your Inspiration

Inspiration porn: what is it, why is it a problem, and what do we do about it?

My Weird Christian College Dating Life and Six Years Married to Bryan

Bryan and I met when I was 19 and he was 20. We were in rural Minnesota (no, not all of Minnesota is rural) at a music festival where I’d just watched him play drums. As fun as they are, ours isn’t a story of “and we knew we belonged together and have been together …

The way we do it: Sleep

The moment you announce your pregnancy, people start in with that sadistic line about enjoying sleep while you can, because you can kiss it goodbye once the baby comes (never mind that many women don’t sleep well toward the end of pregnancy, either). It’s like they take pleasure in the idea that you’re about to …

But how…?

When I announced my pregnancy, I found out that not a lot of people expected me to ever be a mom. That was part self-inflicted, part not. Here’s the part that’s my fault: I was loud about my uncertainty regarding my like of babies. I think I actually hashtagged #nobabiesonlypuppies on Instagram once. Whenever anyone …

Adaptive everything.

As I mentioned in the previous post,  I participated in a panel on adaptive babywearing and parenting last week. It got me thinking about the term adaptive. Honestly, I don't think I wear or parent my baby much differently from the average parent, so I wonder, why do we feel the need to call it, or anything else …

Disabled, new to motherhood, and blogging about it.

A couple of days ago, almost two months into being a mom, I participated in a panel discussion on adaptive parenting and babywearing hosted by Baby K'Tan. It was pretty successful, and people asked a lot of great questions. The theme I saw was hesitance and insecurity, which are two things I felt (and still feel, …