Happy Blog-iversary!

May 30th will mark my first blog-iversary! An entire year has sped past since I started blogging for ADDitudeMag.com about life in the parenting fast-lane—parenting a child with ADHD. I introduced myself and my loveable, exhausting daughter, Natalie, to the whole cyber-world, then shared our pothole-addled ride through a year in our lives: Natalie's as a second grader, and mine as her chronically overwhelmed mom. Some of the many signposts we whizzed past during the last year include:

• A demon possession scare! (How many people can say that?)
• A less-than-sunny summer school experience. (I was the one who was possessed that time!)
• A challenging, but, ultimately, positive school year. (Thanks to great teachers who understand ADHD!)
• Oh-so-many ADHD medication changes! (Are we there yet?)
• Ups and downs in the efficacy of Natalie's special services. (Another day, another social worker.)
• Natalie's "graduation" from occupational therapy. (We miss you, Summer!)
• Losing out on a heck of a lot of sleep…yawn…due to Natalie's sleep disturbance. (I'm counting down to a respite weekend!)
• Quitting my nearly-perfect part-time job in an effort to survive. (At a time when others are hoping to survive job cuts!)

Quitting my job and my adjustment to this new phase of my life has led me to do some soul-searching, and I've decided to set a goal for myself for the next year. We set goals for our kids all the time, right? IEP goals, therapy goals, behavioral goals. Why not focus a little energy on ourselves?

My goal for this, my second blog-year, is to cure myself of having "ADHD by Proxy." To shed my persona of "chronically-overwhelmed mom" and reclaim those characteristics that used to define me. I used to be the embodiment of job-description-buzz-words: a self-starter, able to work independently, excellent at managing my time and multiple projects, well-organized, reliable, and punctual. That was me! And I miss me. I want me back. My goal for the year is to find that old me. Please click by for a read often to see how I'm doing—and leave comments! The support and sense of community I feel from our cyber-interactions are invaluable. I hope you feel understood and supported when you read my blog and readers' comments, too.

In fact, to celebrate and further foster the development of our ADDitude community, I'm issuing this Blog-iversary Challenge: Set a goal for yourself, via a comment on this post. What would you like to change this year? Five random goal-setters who respond by May 31 will receive, as a show of support from ADDitude, their choice of:

• a one-year subscription to ADDitude magazine
• a copy of ADDitude's ADHD Treatment e-book
• a copy of ADDitude's ADHD at School e-book

Put those fingers on the keyboard, and…

Soul-search! Sign in! Set that goal!

I'll see you in the comment section! Here's to a great year!