Have Kids Will Travel - article for Getting There magazine

Check out my article recently published in Getting There magazine about the issue of being a disabled parent using public transport with a child in tow, no mean feat but possible with the sort of planning that would do the military proud.

http://cid-7d03cd7cc3e2777f.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/Getting%20There%20magazine/Have%20kids%20will%20travel%20for%20Getting%20There.pdf

There's a photo of Archie taken fairly recently, with a bus and a tube, at the start of the article and one of me and him in a tube station, taken ages ago now - looks like he's got something wrong with his eye but it's actually a bad 'anti red eye' fix....

Being able to jump [or not]

Ben and Archie are into trying to jump at the moment; I'm sure Ben will get the hang of it fairly soon but Archie might never get the hang of it because having Kniest and jumping don't really go together.

I was never that fussed about not being able to jump [or run] but then it was slightly different for me because I didn't have a little sibling snapping at my heels making me want to do better than them.

When I was young, the one thing I was fussed about was not being able to kneel down and sit back on my feet, if you know what I mean? It always looked like a very comfortable way of sitting on the floor but even if hell had frozen over I still wouldn't have been able to do it, my joints were never flexible enough.

However I remember, when I was about 7, a misguided physiotherapist telling me that if I did this exercise and that exercise I would be able to attain my dream sitting position. Of course this was just an outrageous scam to get me to do the exercises, which was totally unnecessary because I was slightly obsessive about doing them anyway.

Needless to say I did the exercises and I still couldn't kneel and sit back on my feet. I think I was more annoyed about being conned than upset about the exercises not working in the end!

I hope Archie can end up pleased with the things he can do rather than focus on what he can't but I guess that's always going to be slightly harder when he has a little brother who looks like Olympiad material to me - but he is my first non disabled child so it's a learning curve having such an 'able' child in contrast to one who is the mirror image of me.

Reach for the skies - if you are a disabled person

Here a link to my article on new air travel legislation for ABLE magazine, which was published in the print version of the magazine as well as on their website:

http://www.ablemagazine.co.uk/index.php/component/content/article/69-airlines-explored.html