Hello! You may know me as beaker from the boards, and I’m excited to be sharing my family’s story with the hive.

My husband G and I have two boys, 3 year old K and 1 year old D. K is a typically developing, rambunctious toddler. D is thriving now, but was born 2 months early, suffered a brain injury at birth, and had some other major health issues in his first 5 months on the planet. Now we have a much better idea to the extent of his injury, or better stated, the recovery from his injury! As his doctors have told us repeatedly, children’s brains are much more elastic and can recover from so much more, and that has certainly been the case with D. In very brief summary, D relies on a feeding tube, has short gut syndrome and a mild form of cerebral palsy.

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Right now, I WOH part time, while K goes to preschool and my MIL watches D. I’m too nervous with D’s care to send him to a daycare just yet, but I’m hopeful that he can join K’s preschool in the spring. I worked full time before D was born, and may at some point return to full time if/when D has less regular appointments and can be cared for in a more casual environment. My husband owns his own company and contracts for a government agency, and thus works insane hours all the time. I’m sure other spouses of entrepreneurs can relate!

We live in the suburbs of Washington DC, and now that D is a little bigger and sturdier, we do exciting things like visit the playground and go to the grocery store. My in-laws live in the same town and are around a lot to help with the kids (or hoist their kid on us – my SIL is 12!), and my parents are also close by. We’re so happy the boys are growing up with their grandparents – the benefits of local relatives far outweigh the disadvantages for us!

My husband’s family is Hindu, and we’ve done some Hindu rituals for both boys. For K we had a ceremony/prayer for when he took his first bite of solid food (sweet potato, yum!), and then for both K & D we shaved their heads around 7 months old. Many Hindus feel that it’s important to shave babies’ heads while they are still infants. It’s also common for adults to do it as a part of a concentrated prayer, as an offering to God. That said, Hindu beliefs are extremely varied – so take us as an example rather than a rubric, and note that my explanations are not necessarily a reflection of the majority opinion!


K taking his food ceremony very seriously, and newly bald D 

I think that covers what makes our family unique! At the end of the day I still am running around chasing a baby and a toddler like many of you. I hope that I can bring some useful perspective to those of you with more typically developing babies, and a familiar voice to those parents dealing with serious health issues. I look forward to going through D’s medical journey and the resulting parenting challenges with you all. Thanks for having me!