The rumors that I am the party-til-dawn BlogHer animal are completely unfounded. True I would drag myself to bed well after my darling room-mate was deep in dreamland but my body was just confused. Thankfully tweets from other west coasties proved that I wasn’t the only one going to bed on west coast time (dude 1:30 AM in NYC is 10:30 PM in Cali!) while attempting to do the BlogHer thing on east coast time. Poor Vampira the Night Shift Nurse just never figured out what time of day it was because she was still working on night shift time…she still hasn’t back home…oh the joys of working 7PM to 7AM in a world where people seem to mostly function in daytime!

No, for me, BlogHer wasn’t all about the parties, private or not. I did attend a few but not nearly the number of events as some of my favorite people…ahem…including my lovely roomie, who needs to tell me how she kept up the amazing energy that she had. I did manage to attend a few sessions. One in particular made me feel like I found my niche, or at least a panel discussion that brought me back to why I started blogging in the first place.

l. to r. Shark-Fu, Shannon, Carol and Stimey

I started this blog nearly six years ago as therapy for me. There was so much loss in our family’s life that year along with just coping with the day to day life of raising a child with chronic medical issues as well as developmental special needs. Everything I ever knew about the care of micropreemies really meant nothing once I brought my own micropreemie home from the hospital. While my colleagues, the ones who rocked in their amazing care of Daniel during his NICU stay, celebrated the success of another growing and thriving ex 24 weeker, I was realizing that Daniel’s long, uphill climb to normalcy was a lot harder than I ever could have imagined. No, it was fucking hard…definitely hard. But through blogging I came to appreciate the joy, so much joy that was in my life thanks to this sweet, amazing, little man of mine.

Daniel had no working diagnosis then as he still does not now. The experts all assure me that no, he is not mentally retarded; no, he does not have cerebral palsy; no, he does not fall into the autism spectrum; no, he is not quite ready to be diagnosed with ADHD; maybe he has SPD but then again, maybe not. For now he is in the developmentally delayed gray area that is secondary to his extreme premature birth.

I’m okay with being in the gray. Gray is kind of good because I’m too busy just enjoying life with Daniel. But then there are the days when I’m not too comfortable with living in shades of gray. That’s one of the primary reasons I keep on blogging and why I am drawn to amazing bloggers like this panel or Kari or Amy. Some of them, okay all of them except for Kari, may not know me but I have a feeling they get me a lot more than others might. Just like I get how crazy cool it is when one of their kids FINALLY eats cheese pizza or how frustrating it is to do the constant two-step we dance with our kids as they take two steps forward one day then one giant step back the next day. Just like I believe that many of these bloggers get my need to walk with my son through every square foot of what is going to be his new school because the school district needs to find a way to save money without breaking the law has a better way to provide for the needs of their students in the Special Day Class program.

Sure this wasn’t the panel where bloggers could learn to take their blogs to the uber-monetizing status or how to publish their writing but who really cares if it didn’t meet those needs? I certainly don’t because I’m not into the idea of being a monetizing uber giant blogger. I needed to find a little bit of my blogging mojo that was lost and a little bit of encouragement in the community that I identify with…even if we don’t have a formal diagnosis for my child.

Daniel walked around the campus pointing out to me that the trees were different, the lockers are different, the buildings are not the same color but then he met and shook hands with some of the office staff, the principal, the janitors (who agreed that the color of the lockers is disgusting) and his teacher. I appreciate that during the the busyness of prepping her classroom, his new teacher took the time to meet Daniel and show him around the classroom a little. I liked how the two of them talked about how awesome math is even if I don’t get why math is even remotely awesome…it’s not…at least to me. Then Daniel discovered the playground where he will be at play everyday and I knew that he will be okay…which means that I will be okay.

It was all sparkles and unicorns and laughter and happy music until I noticed the broken beer bottles under the slide…then I was reminded again how irritated I am by the stupid wisdom of the school district. That would probably explain my sarcasm to those who have a better understanding of my life when I informed the office of the broken beer bottles on the playground…don’t joke that perhaps the students should be encouraged to use cans rather than glass bottles and certainly don’t refer to your child’s transportation as the “short bus” when asking for the “short bus” schedule even if it is your child who is going to be riding the “short bus” to their school.

This school is going to LOVE me!