Sensory Processing Disorder: Unless you live it, you probably won’t get it

This morning was the stuff of nightmares. It's picture day at school, and both Elliott and Emmett are dressed up, looking quite spiffy. Both were excited about pictures and very much looking forward to going to school. Then it became time for shoes and socks. Emmett went into it with a fantastic can-do attitude, as did Lizze and I. Unfortunately, all the great attitude, positive thoughts and hopeful outlooks in the world, can't seem to counter the nightmare that is sensory processing disorder. We worked with Emmett for almost one hour and forty-five minutes but were unable to work through it. Emmett kept wanting to try different options, but even flip-flops were feeling too funny to tolerate. Poor Emmett was so upset that he was going to miss pictures and…

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A few reasons why I’m so proud of my kids today

Both Elliott and Emmett were in rare form today. I definitely had my moments where I thought I was going to go crazy but I ended up pulling through just fine. Perhaps a few more grey hairs but that's sorta par for the course. 😁  I do want to say that I'm super proud of both Elliott and Emmett because they came home from school and tackled their homework. Not having to fight the homework battle, especially with Elliott, is always a positive thing. I never take these types of moment for granted because you never know when they're going to arrive.  Elliott and Emmett even played nice today, except for Emmett kicking Elliott in the testicle. That wasn't nice and we had a talk about that.  Lizze put the…

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I’m not sure how I’m doing in regards to my Depression and here’s why

I wanted to put out a brief update on how my tumultuous relationship with Depression is going.  In case you've not read any of my past posts on depression, I'll sum it up for you. Depression fucking sucks and unless you're living with it, comprehending it's impact in a truly meaningful way, is not easy.  That's pretty much the status quo for anything, not just Depression. It's tough to understand without first hand knowledge.  My war with Depression has been going on since my early teens. I go to therapy, take my meds and see my doctor whenever I feel changes have to be made.  Lately, I've been doing okay, but not great, at least as far as I'm concerned. I'm not always the best judge of this because I'm…

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#Autism Parenting: Whatever doesn’t kill you….. 

Whatever doesn't kill you, only makes you stronger. If that's true, I should be in really good shape after the morning I've had.  My God... You would think that we were trying to cut his feet off, when all we were trying to do was help him get something on them that would allow him to go to school.  Every time it feels like we've made progress, something always comes along and yanks the rug out from underneath our feet.  The reality is, raising kids on the Autism Spectrum is like living in Ohio and complaining about the weather. If we just wait ten minutes, the weather will change.  In many ways, that's true in regards to parenting a child on the spectrum but not always in the sense that…

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I’m not sure how today’s going to go 

We've got a busy morning ahead of us. The boys did not want to wake up and even after they did, it was like pulling teeth to get them moving.  I'm not looking forward to working with Emmett on his shoes and socks. Maybe everything will go smoothly and there won't be any problems. At this point, I'm just hoping to make it through the morning, with both kids in school.  It's time to get back into the frenzy..... 

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The heartbreaking reality of sensory processing disorder (video) 

I've been talking about sensory issues in regards to my kids for years. The story always seems to revolve around shoes, socks, and school, especially in Emmett's case. Almost every single morning, we spend upwards of an hour or more, trying to help Emmett tolerate his shoes and socks. There are times that we succeed in overcoming these obstacles and there are days in which we don't even come close. The examples I've given have mostly revolved around Emmett missing school because he can't tolerate his shoes and socks. No matter how many times I've tried to explain that Emmett's not trying to get out of going to school, there's always that doubt in people's mind because it seems like getting to stay home is his ultimate goal. As I've…

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It feels like my sanity has existed stage right

The boys were up super early this morning but Lizze let me sleep in. I was still up around 8:00 AM and have been moving a bit slowly thus far.  We've opted for no video games this morning because there's been to much fighting over them lately. Both Elliott and Emmett have been at each other's throats and I'm already feeling my sanity existing stage right.  I've got a shitload of laundry staring at me and I've accepted the challenges of folding and sorting. 

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3 items are helping my son with #Autism gain independence  

I've spoken about this a few times before, but I wanted to share something we've done, to help our low functioning teenager with Autism, gain a bit more independence. Gavin is seventeen years old and struggles in most areas of his life. He's unable to remember things, and his cognitive ability is in a slow, unending decline. One of the things that we've recently done to help him better manage his daily life, weekly schedule and bedtime routine, is introduce some home automation into his room. I've been working on automating our home over the last year or so. For whatever reason, Gavin was resistant to being included in this process but a few days ago, he decided he'd like to give it a try and that's pretty exciting because…

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