| Category: Columnists |
Long Journey on a Short Bus
Don’t Tell My Kid He’s Okay
By Karen Murphy
Eric and I were in a hotel lobby. We had a date to climb the stairs to the second floor together so he could see me watching him jump down them again one by one, but before we could do that I had some business to take care of with the people behind the...read more |
| Category: Columnists |
Long Journey on a Short Bus
Having a Sibling With Down Syndrome
By Karen Murphy
Nathaniel and Serena, Eric’s older brother and sister, arrived in Seattle last week to visit me before school starts. They got in my car, looked around, and then at each other.
“It feels weird without Eric here,” Nathaniel said finally,...read more |
| Category: Columnists |
Long Journey on a Short Bus
This Year, He Gets a Pony
By Karen Murphy
So your kid’s going to kindergarten in the fall. Congratulations. Quick! What should his college major be? YOU HAVE TO KNOW NOW.
[insert Jeopardy music here.]
What’s the matter, can’t decide? Maybe because Junior still can’t...read more |
| Category: Columnists |
Long Journey on a Short Bus
Heads: Rocket Science; Tails: Basketweaving
By Karen Murphy
My son Eric is being kicked out of preschool. Kicked upstairs, really — next year he’ll be thrown into kindergarten instead, stepping into the flow of his next 20 years. Public education, special-needs style. Short bus stuff.
The Transition...read more |
| Category: Columnists |
Long Journey on a Short Bus
I Have Down Syndrome Radar
By Karen Murphy
I spot them, the people with Down syndrome, a mile away. There’s something about them that’s instantly recognizable to me, something in the way they hold themselves or the way they look at other people. It’s like they are my son Eric,...read more |
| Category: Columnists |
Long Journey on a Short Bus
Yes, My Kid is Retarded
By Karen Murphy
Go ahead. Call my kid retarded. I don’t mind.
No, that’s not a challenge, go ahead call my kid retarded I DARE YOU. (And then WHAM! Off with your head!) It’s not a trick. It’s not. Really. It’s … an invitation.
Retarded.
We...read more |
| Category: Columnists |
Long Journey on a Short Bus
Off to never never land.
By Karen Murphy
They’re talking about school next year. My kid is going to school. Not the special ed preschool he’s attended for the past three years, but school-school. Big Kid School. Short bus school. Maybe even mainstream school.
I don’t...read more |
| Category: Columnists |
Long Journey on a Short Bus
He's not quite for sale.
By Karen Murphy
You sort of have to admire anyone—even if it’s a child of just five—who honestly doesn’t care what people think of him. A kid who seeks to simply enjoy himself, not at anyone’s expense, but just from the joy it brings...read more |
| Category: Columnists |
Long Journey on a Short Bus
Revising the rules.
By Karen Murphy
He was clearly excited and he clutched his ticket tightly, keeping his eyes on the airport gate agent. From time to time he glanced at other passengers milling about and waiting to board the plane, answering their questions—if they acknowledged...read more |
| Category: Columnists |
Long Journey on a Short Bus
Bumpy Roads and Poop: The Big Oh-Five
By Karen Murphy
Eric, my baby, turned 5 last week. The big oh-five. You remember five? At five I was in kindergarten trying to figure out what “playing house” meant and why anybody would even want to and arguing with other kids about things like what day...read more |
| Category: Columnists |
Long Journey on a Short Bus
Perfect Birth
By Karen Murphy
It was going to be the perfect birth. Under soft gentle lighting, bathed in quiet contemplation of the perfection of this tiny soul we were welcoming to the planet, my son Eric was going to make his appearance. Everything had been planned: the warm-water...read more |
| Category: Columnists |
Long Journey on a Short Bus
My kid's going to die. Is yours?
By Karen Murphy
The thing that sets parents of kids with special needs apart from other parents is simple. Death. The rule is that parents die before their kids do. That’s the way it’s supposed to be. Everyone knows it, and everyone accepts it. Kids are not...read more |
| Category: Columnists |
Long Journey on a Short Bus
The Club.
By Karen Murphy
Last year just before Halloween we shopped for costumes. Each and every year for years before that I had lovingly and painstakingly sewed intricate costumes, despite knowing next to nothing about sewing, but now that Eric was of age to wear one I felt...read more |
| Category: Columnists |
Long Journey on a Short Bus
Saving the world.
By Karen Murphy
I dreamed about Eric this morning.
In the dream he said to me, “I want some cold milk,” and then he walked into the kitchen and sat down on the floor in his customary spot where he waits for someone to get him a drink when he wants one.
I...read more |
| Category: Columnists |
Long Journey on a Short Bus
Outside the Box
By Karen Murphy
I have decided that in my next life I am going to be my son. Of all the people I know he is the one who seems to be having the best time.
Eric goes to a special-needs preschool four mornings a week. Other than some cryptic hastily-scrawled daily notes...read more |
| Category: Columnists |
Long Journey on a Short Bus
The support group didn't cover this part.
By Karen Murphy
I have a secret.
Well, it’s not really a secret. Anybody with half a brain can see that my son has Down syndrome. Of course, anybody with Down syndrome only has half a brain. Ba dum bum.
(I can tell those tasteless jokes because believe...read more |
