I love watching movies.

Though preferential to dramas and comedies, I’m intrigued by almost every genre, with the exception of horror films.A good plot will quickly pull me into the middle of the story. After a long week of work or hours in a hospital, it’s often an escape, a chance to unplug from the pressures of reality.

Admittedly, many of the movies we watch are predictable.Rarely are we shocked by what we see on the big screen.In fact, we’re often able to see the end at the beginning. But every now and again, we’re caught by surprise, like the sight of a bolt of lightening out of a clear blue sky. To me, those moments are great fun.

I love it when I say, “Wow, I never saw that coming!”

But while I like that trait in a movie, I am not a big fan of surprises in real life.

When it comes to our children, I wish I had the ability to see what was going to happen in the future. For example, recently we’ve been working on teaching our son how to drive a car.I wish I could look into the future, and see if we we’re successful and find out if he’s indeed able to drive.

Life seems funny that way. We work with our children on so many things never knowing what effect it will have on their overall health and wellness.

And we almost seem frantic on some occasions to get as much as we can in each week.I know we want to do all we can for our children but wouldn’t it be easier if we knew what would make the biggest difference for our children and just do those things.

Is that what drives us to fill our days with activities? Or do we live with some fear of our child ending up in therapy as an adult cursing us for not providing that one thing that would have made them whole?

With our child with special needs I know that therapies and activities can make a significant difference but which one will be the one that makes the biggest difference? Unless we have a crystal ball there is no way of knowing.

I had a conversation this week with a family that is working with the families of the disabled in Romania. One statement that struck me was when the mom told me many in Romania think if they could just get to the U.S. then their child could have some sort of surgery or medicine that would cure them.

Just like our lives, this statement isn’t in most cases the truth. I have a child with a disability. Eleven major surgeries, multiple injections of botox and countless therapy have made a difference in his life but it has not changed the fact my son has a disability.

And seventeen years later just writing this makes me pause, and still makes me emotional. Of course not at the level it did all those years ago but it will be something that will be with me for my lifetime.

But it is this emotion not logic that many times drives us to sign our children up for more things than is reasonable. Not saying any of these things are good or bad but in the same way scientists injecting a rat with seven times it’s body weight of anything will surely kill the poor animal, so will overloading our families.

We need as parents to sit down and take a fresh look at our family and our schedules and say some things just need to go. Both for our sanity and the sanity of those we love. We also need to figure out when the feelings that caused us to overload in the first place rise up to recognize them and deal with them in a healthy way.

Because unless you get the opportunity to live your life backwards like the resent movie I watched, we don’t get to know the future. But if we don’t take a moment to live today the regrets will be not missed therapies but loved ones lost.