{"id":16449,"date":"2020-05-10T10:33:43","date_gmt":"2020-05-10T14:33:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/?p=16449"},"modified":"2020-05-10T13:26:10","modified_gmt":"2020-05-10T17:26:10","slug":"mothers-day-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/2020\/05\/mothers-day-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Mother&#8217;s Day"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-16450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Disney-Universal-2019-161-400x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Disney-Universal-2019-161-400x300.jpg 400w, https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Disney-Universal-2019-161-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Disney-Universal-2019-161-240x180.jpg 240w, https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Disney-Universal-2019-161-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Disney-Universal-2019-161-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Disney-Universal-2019-161-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Disney-Universal-2019-161-560x420.jpg 560w, https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Disney-Universal-2019-161-80x60.jpg 80w, https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Disney-Universal-2019-161-100x75.jpg 100w, https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Disney-Universal-2019-161-180x135.jpg 180w, https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Disney-Universal-2019-161-238x178.jpg 238w, https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Disney-Universal-2019-161-640x480.jpg 640w, https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Disney-Universal-2019-161-681x511.jpg 681w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Oh, what an interesting Mother\u2019s Day this will be.<\/p>\n<p>Normally, there is a lot of pageantry surrounding Mother\u2019s Day in this house, as I consider it to be a high holiday. In years past there have been scavenger hunts conducted by my youngest, and homemade cards galore. There is always at least one meal I don\u2019t have to cook (yay!), a few gifts, and a general air that I am queen for a day. My youngest and I usually go to church, followed up by a family trip to Great Adventure. Top that off with a visit from Grandma to celebrate, and Mother\u2019s Day has always been a special event chez McCafferty.<\/p>\n<p>This year, of course, will be different.<\/p>\n<p>Hopefully the not cooking one meal will stand (a girl must have her dreams). My youngest is now way too old for scavenger hunts, and Great Adventure along with everything else in the world is closed.<\/p>\n<p>If there is a Grandma sighting, it will be with her masked and waving from the driveway.<\/p>\n<p>No, Mother\u2019s Day won\u2019t resemble anything like our usual celebrations.<\/p>\n<p>But cherish it I will.<\/p>\n<p>Seventeen years ago this month my beautiful son Justin made me a mom. I hoped for healthy and happy, and secretly wished he\u2019d love to read and go to the beach as much as I do.<\/p>\n<p>For short periods, he likes to do both.<\/p>\n<p>I can tell you that almost none of what I envisioned for his life trajectory has come to pass, nor will happen. I envisioned playdates and driver\u2019s licenses. Prom, college, and maybe grandkids before I was ancient.<\/p>\n<p>The truth is, absolutely none of this is going to happen.<\/p>\n<p>I won\u2019t tell you it doesn\u2019t matter. But what I will tell you is that my boy and I have been able to forge an unbreakable bond of love and trust I wouldn\u2019t trade for the world. He has taught me patience and tenacity in spades. I love him to the moon and back.<\/p>\n<p>Thirteen years ago my incredible son Zach completed our family. He has taught me to look at the world in unique ways, to perservere, and to love Marvel movies with all my heart. My youngest will have more of a \u201ctraditional\u201d life, whatever form that takes.<\/p>\n<p>And I can\u2019t wait to see what form that takes.<\/p>\n<p>The truth is, I have many roles in this world, but the one of mom has been my calling. I couldn\u2019t ask for better sons.<\/p>\n<p>I will fight for your happiness with my last breath.<\/p>\n<p>I will always be your champion and ally.<\/p>\n<p>I love you both so much.<\/p>\n<p>Thank you for making me a mom!<\/p>\n<p><em>For more on my family visit my blog at autismmommytherapist.wordpress.com<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Follow me on Facebook at Autism Mommy-Therapist<\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"fcbkbttn_buttons_block\" id=\"fcbkbttn_left\"><div class=\"fb-share-button fcbkbttn_large_button \" data-href=\"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/2020\/05\/mothers-day-2\/\" data-type=\"button_count\" data-size=\"large\"><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Oh, what an interesting Mother\u2019s Day this will be. Normally, there is a lot of pageantry surrounding Mother\u2019s Day in this house, as I consider it to be a high holiday. In years past there have been scavenger hunts conducted by my youngest, and homemade cards galore. There is always at least one meal I [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":196,"featured_media":16450,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,12],"tags":[293,295,294,1260],"class_list":["post-16449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life-in-brick","category-ocean-county","tag-autism","tag-autism-acceptance","tag-autism-awareness","tag-mothers-day"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Disney-Universal-2019-161-scaled.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgt2Ft-4hj","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/196"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16449\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}