These Things... Another unpublished draft

These things have been on my mind lately.. These things I let get to me too often. These things I would never take for granted. These things I will share with you.

There are so many times I wish I had the ability to hop in my car and drive with Sophia anywhere I pleased, whenever I pleased. I wish I had the liberty and freedom to take Sophia to the grocery or to the park just the two of us. There are times I just feel locked in our own world. Literally, a prisoner of my own house because I cannot leave the house without someone to help suction Sophia in the car.  I wish that every trip out of the house didn't involve lengthy preparation to make sure we have all the appropriate medical supplies and machines. I wish people could feel the anxiety it causes to unload our supplies while visiting family or understand the need for things to be set up and in place before I can even say hello. I wish I didn't have to plan our day trips based on Sophia's proximity to her suction machine, the suction machine to an outlet, and how that suctioning is going to effect where we are or who we are among.

We haven't been on a vacation since 2011. I wish we could take a trip or stay the night with a friend an not have to worry about packing equipment or how long the oxygen will last or who I have to call to set up orders. The only place we have stayed over is my grandmothers and to do that I have had to make arrangements with the medical company to deliver supplies which turns into a confusing nightmare because apparently is becomes to much of a hassle for them to switch locations for a weekend.

I wish that when we went out to eat and the waitress asks if we would like I kids menu, I could say yes.

I wish Sophia could take a bath and truly splash in the water and play with bath toys without coughing (choking) on water droplets that run in her trach. Sophia has a medical bath chair.

I wish smokers wouldn't smoke. PERIOD. STOP. You cause me anxiety.

Conversations about Sophia and school and special education and hearing impaired assistants and buses and model students are becoming to real and make me want to cry.

I wish I could hear Sophia cry or talk to laugh to yell or say mommy.

I wish I could be both a working mother and a stay at home mother because I enjoy these times teaching because it gives me a new identity and liberation and I wish I could stay at home and never miss an appointment or new experience with my ever changing child.