Lizze and I spoke to Elliott and Emmett this afternoon about Gavin moving to residential treatment at some point soon. We decided that we had to tell them before Gavin told them some bastardized version of the truth and tried to turn them against us.  We knew this would be very difficult for Elliott and we wanted to make sure that he heard the truth and that he heard it from us.  As I suspected, this didn't go very well. Emmett was largely unaffected because he didn't understand and wasn't really paying attention.  Elliott on the other hand, is another story completely. No sooner did the words cross my lips, the he broke down. He sobbed and sobbed to the point that he was hyperventilating and we almost had to…

Last night I wrote a post called The void inside of me. I shared how I was feeling about not only having to send Gavin to residential treatment but also having to tell him about it. Many of my readers were concerned about Gavin telling Elliott and Emmett about this before we do. Idealy, we wouldn't tell them until it was actually happening.  However, this is far from the ideal situation.  The concern is that if Gavin says anything to the boys,  it likely will be meant to turn them against us. It will neither be accurate or true and we can't allow that to happen. To be completely honest with you,  I hadn't thought about that.  My readers are absolutely right.  We need to be the first ones to…

Yesterday was a rough day, there's no two ways about it.  However,  we did have some high points. One of them is pictured below. Since Emmett is officially allergy free,  he can finally enjoy the little things in life that are taken for granted by so many people, including myself. This was the best $0.49 I have ever spent.  This was posted via WordPress for Android, courtesy of Samsung’s Galaxy S III. Please forgive any typos. I do know how to spell but auto-correct hate me. Please join our Autism Help Forums Look for "Autism Help" app at the Google Play Store

We met with Dr. Patti tonight.  The mission was to speak with Gavin about the issues with his behavioral choices.  This conversation was very honest and I mean very honest.  Basically, Dr. Patti said that Gavin is simply not capable of caring about anyone or anything but himself and what he wants.  As horrible as it is to hear that,  it's absolutely the truth. The conversation cover a great many things involving our current family situation and how his choices are hurting everyone in the house.  Towards the end of the meeting the conversation took a turn.  Dr. Patti wanted Gavin to know that it has become clear to her that he is no longer capable of living with his family.  I had been stressing out about how to broach…

Today we had our 2nd Wraparound meeting this morning.  The purpose of today's meeting was for them to meet Gavin. We also had a bit of paperwork to go over as well. Our coordinator is getting ready to petition for funding, so we can place Gavin into residential care. We briefly spoke about some of the things that have transpired since our last meeting a few weeks ago. At one point, I had Gavin in step out of the room so we could speak more openly about what has been going of.  I also showed her the video from this past Saturday of Gavin having a tantrum. I don't think she was prepared to for what she saw.  After Gavin came back in the room she was asking him some…

The boys had therapy yesterday afternoon.  All was well until right before we arrived at Concorde Kids. However, I've gotten ahead of myself. Emmett and I went to pick up his brothers at school, around 2pm. They all had either speech, OT or both. When Elliott got into the van he was a little bit upset because he was missing get snack time.  He talked himself through it and was doing ok.  While on the way to Concorde Kids,  Elliott made the comment that 3pm would be here really soon and he could go home and have a snack.  I thought that was very mature of him and I was about to tell him how proud of him I was for handling that so well.  However, before I could open…