My year of 100 Family Dinners Week 41: Dinners #99, #100, #101

This week, we crossed a big milestone.

Dinner #100.

And if I’m honest, it didn’t look anything like I imagined when I set this goal months ago.

When the Table Moves to the Bed

Three of our dinners this week happened in my bed. That’s become the center of our world lately. With my son’s seizures happening more often, it’s where he feels safest and where we’ve gathered around him.

My daughter has been incredible. Sometimes she curls up on the bed with us, watching our show and chatting. Other times she sits at my desk, doing her own thing, still nearby. We’re together, just not in the way we used to be.

We’re finishing Atypical and all three of us are oddly emotional about it ending. It’s been such a comfort watching a family navigate disability, love, exhaustion, and growth. It feels familiar in ways I didn’t expect.

Hospital Walls & Holding Steady

Monday morning, my son and I headed to Phoenix for his overnight EEG at the children’s hospital. My daughter stayed with friends. She was carried by a small village of people who stepped in without hesitation. I felt the weight of that support deeply.

This was our first hospital stay outside of births. We packed snacks, books, and hope. We stayed the night, surrounded by beeping monitors, lights that snapped on with every incident, nurses coming and going, and very little sleep.

The staff was incredible. One tech even made my son a unicorn horn to wear, which brought some much-needed laughter. But in the end, we learned nothing new. His brain is still having seizure activity. We already knew that. We were hoping for answers, and that part was hard to sit with.

Caregiving Is a Full-Time Job

This week, I became, again, a full-time medical coordinator. Scheduling appointments. Calling doctors. Tracking symptoms. Looping in specialists.

Everything else faded into the background.

My work slowed. My nonprofit grant writing paused. My parent coaching had to take a back seat. That loss of momentum stings but right now, this is where my energy has to go.

Co-parenting during this time has been difficult. I know helplessness shows up in people differently, but the lack of support has been frustrating. I’ve learned that I can’t carry both the medical crisis and manage someone else’s emotions about it. I don’t have space for that.

Small Mercies & Necessary Breaks

Later in the week, we were back in Phoenix for a cardiology appointment, then straight home for a football game. Afterward, my son spent the weekend with his dad and attended an epilepsy event with him, something I was genuinely grateful for.

Meanwhile, my daughter and I took a quiet break together. Not because I needed a break from my son, but because everything has been heavy. That time with her felt grounding and necessary.

The Heart of This Week

Here’s the purpose I think I’ve been searching for:

Connection doesn’t disappear in crisis it changes shape.

Right now, connection looks like shared exhaustion.It looks like sitting in the same room without talking.It looks like hospital food, cold dinners, and cancelled plans.It looks like being physically together because emotionally, everything is fragile.

Dinner #100 didn’t come with celebration or fanfare. It came with vulnerability, fatigue, and presence.

And maybe that’s the point.

If you’re reading this while parenting through illness, uncertainty, or fear please know this:You’re not doing it wrong because everything feels heavy.You’re not failing because your life is paused.You’re not alone because someone else out there is sitting in a hospital chair, or a bed, or a quiet house, doing the same thing.

This journey was never about perfect dinners.It’s about choosing connection even when the table disappears.

And this week, we did exactly that.