Special Needs

Disclosure :: Red Stick Moms Blog seeks to honor the voices of all moms living in Louisiana. We understand and respect that this is controversial topic, but we ask that you read Katie's journey to seek understanding and - should you desire to weigh in - that you engage respectfully. I’m an unlikely medical marijuana supporter. I’m a wife to a law enforcement officer. I’m a mom to three beautiful boys. I’m a teacher. I’m a devout Catholic. I’m all the things you wouldn’t expect of person advocating for the legalization of medical marijuana here in this very conservative state of Louisiana. I am advocating for medical marijuana for my nine year old son. My son Connor is a joyful child with the biggest...

To My Child with Cystic Fibrosis: Please Outlive Me There are times where it hits me out of nowhere. Brushing my teeth, driving to work, folding laundry … times where I am doing the most mundane things and my guard is down. It’s at those times that my mind reminds me “You might have to say goodbye to him sooner than you would like.” Our son has an incurable, life-threatening chronic illness. Jax has cystic fibrosis (CF). CF is an unpredictable, life-shortening genetic disease. It’s an ugly disease that causes a myriad of complications, mainly lung infections and respiratory failure. We found out about cystic fibrosis on a Friday afternoon. Jax was eight days old, and it had been a long day....

Disclosure :: This post is sponsored by The Emerge Center. That said, we appreciate this beautifully honest post written by Mandy Cowley, Emerge parent, & Brandi Monjure, Communications and Events Coordinator at The Emerge Center, as much as we do!  Take a moment to think about the typical, everyday stresses you face as a mom. Twenty birthday invitations need to be mailed tomorrow. Dinner for five needs to be on the table in an hour. Two kids need to brush their teeth, take a bath, and be in bed by eight. It all adds up, and we know you stay busy juggling it all! Now imagine adding just a few more variables into that equation…Therapy for your child is too expensive to be able...

I’m a worse case scenario kind of person. If my husband calls me on his way home from work, I answer assuming he’s been in a car accident. If I hear one of my children fall in his bedroom, I’m mentally preparing myself for a trip to the ER. Granted, these worse cases rarely ever happen in real life, but I can’t help myself from readying for them. So when my 4-year-old son failed an eye exam – despite having new glasses – I was prepared to hear some sort of bad news. As it turns out, we didn’t get the worse possible news, which of course would be cancer or some other life threatening condition. But what I did...

We all have fears and worries when it comes to our children. The first several years of my son Baylor’s life was filled with just that… The constant fear of losing him in a store or crowded area. How would I ever find him when he can’t even speak, much less tell someone his name? Or being upset when he has been pumped about Halloween for weeks and weeks but 5 minutes before leaving, your child does a 180 and suddenly doesn’t want to go. After pulling him aside and talking to him, you realize he doesn’t want to go now because he remembers he can’t say “Trick or Treat” like the other children. Imagine looking out your front...