There are moments we experience, which follow us, entering our thoughts when we least expect, and weaving together with other pieces of our journey to shape us, give us pause, make us think…evolve…and create purpose as we move forward. When I was pregnant with Leo, I went for a 3D ultrasound session at 27 weeks, hoping to get a sneak peek of the sweet baby I would soon be holding in my arms. Everything about that day remains vivid and clearly outlined in my memory. Watching my boy on the…
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It’s hard to put into words what it is like to give your everything and more to a little person who cannot call you Mom. I do know it is a lesson in unconditional love to the highest degree. I have this little boy. He has autism, but he is so much more than that. He is a living breathing example of all that is pure and all that is good in this world. He has taught me that the smallest things truly do take up the most space in…
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In February I shared a very disturbing story with you about a parent’s worst nightmare. You can read the full story HERE. Amber Pack, a West Virginia mother, sent her 8-year-old severely autistic daughter to class with a recording device after her child didn’t want to go back to school. What Amber heard on the recording was sickening. The tapes uncovered verbal, emotional, and possible physical abuse. Here are a few of the recordings. Instructor #1: “This one I could punch her right in her face.” A different instructor in the…
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I need to be real for a minute. It’s not that I don’t want to be around you. It’s not that I don’t like your kids. It’s not that I don’t love watching your kids grow up from afar. It’s not that I’m not happy for you. It’s just too hard. It’s too hard to see your children developing at a normal rate. There’s no speech and language delay. There is no vocal stimming. There are no show stopping meltdowns. You just have kids who have a typical path to…
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Autism comes with so many difficulties. There are serious medical issues. Constant vigilance is required to prevent wandering and accidents. Often, a Herculean effort is required to complete the most basic of tasks. And every victory, every milestone was earned with blood, sweat, and tears. But I want to write about one of the biggest difficulties that comes with autism. It weighs on me daily. I can only imagine how it affects my son, Christopher. And it might even be THE biggest issue for me – the main reason why…
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Somewhere along the way it got easier. I can’t tell you exactly when it happened either. I sometimes try to figure out when we let the breath out that we’d been holding for so long. But I can’t pinpoint it. I remember it being hard. New baby hard. No sleep and nursing hard. And then toddler hard. And then really hard. Nonverbal autism hard. I remember trying to live our lives the way we always had. And failing. Everything was hard. And I mean everything. We couldn’t win. No matter…
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Autism Awareness month has ended and we now have an official diagnosis…for the second time. Let me clarify. My son received a very early diagnosis thanks to my daughter. You see our girl had her difficulties in language development leading to early intervention services. Yet no autism diagnosis. We did the developmental doctor visit and left with a language developmental delay and sensory processing disorder as I was hugely pregnant with our son. Do I dare say relief? As our daughter’s language developed it was a breath of fresh air. …
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You can’t pour from an empty cup. I’ve seen this plastered all over social media. And they are such wise words. Figuratively and literally, it makes so much sense. And I believe them wholeheartedly. But there’s a problem with my cup. There’s a hole at the bottom of it. And no matter how much I pour in, I always seem to fall short and empty. And that hole is autism. I am a very blessed woman. I have a wonderful 5 year old son who is the highlight of my…
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We’ve known Lennon has autism for quite some time now, but the medical diagnosis came more recently. He is 30 months old now, a 2 1/2 year old aptly nicknamed “Baby Giant.” What that diagnosis came with were the parameters in which he fell. Nothing was where it should be, even his gross motor skills which we (his father and I) believed to be stellar. In most categories he fell in the 9 – 18 month range. Expected. Receptive comprehension was another story. There he was at (or under) the…
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Being in a new place – with new surroundings, new people, new sounds, new lights, new everything – can be trying for any child. However, for my Jack it’s A LOT. It’s a challenge and something we all have to work hard towards together as a family. But we do it. We want to. Albeit a lot easier, we don’t want to always stay in our comfort zone of home. When the environment gets to be too much for Jack, he stims a lot more (in his case, jumping and…
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