Welcome to NaBloPoMo!

I am sure you are all thinking "huh"? I thought the same thing when I first read the phrase on a different blog. It stands for National Blog Posting Month. In November, thousands of bloggers are signing up on the official site to commit themselves to blog once a day for the whole month and yours truly is attempting to be part of it.
The point of this little exercise is to "Improve your writing and grow your blog" And obviously just to have fun. When I first read about it, I thought- no way, I have too much going on. But then I reconsidered. I thought it might be fun to document the last month of my pregnancy. And all the other random and funny things that happen to our family. And my thoughts about other blogs, articles and interesting things I have come across. I do not know if anyone is actually interested in reading my thoughts every day, but even if not, it is a good writing exercise for me. And it does not require any major commitment. If I can't do it, nothing happens. If I do, I may actually enjoy and learn something new.
I did not even know about this yesterday, but I did publish a post, so so far I am doing great :)



In other news- interesting link alert- Ellen at Love that Max wrote about an encounter with a man who has special needs in a restaurant. Her husband and her had a lovely conversation with him and felt very comfortable interacting with him. Afterwards, they reflected on, how, before their son was born, they may have felt differently about this whole episode. The awareness that having a child with special needs changes your perspective and understanding that not everyone has the same sensitivity you do. In fact, you did not always have it yourself.
I actually had a similar encounter myself this week. I was heading to a parenting class today (topic for another post this month- I can't use all my material up!) and had some extra time before it started, so I stopped off in Gap for a minute. I did not buy anything but I did meet a nice woman who worked in the store. She asked me what month I was in and told me I look great, which I always like to hear. This woman definitely had some sort of mild disability but she was really sweet. She also told me that she had just given me a compliment, so I thanked her for it again. When I left the store, I wished her a good day and she told me to enjoy my last month of my pregnancy. It was a very short and inconsequential thing, but I hope she felt good that I had engaged with her and I was happy to see that Gap hiring adults with special needs,
It is a good question to ask yourself- how would you react if someone approached you, and why? And what can we do to work on our sensitivity as well as educate others.