Today’s Victory goes to Sir Elliott and Prince Emmett.  They were snuggling on the couch for a little while this afternoon playing 3DS. While it didn't last very long,  they were getting along well and it was nice to see that. 

Everyone knows that having to discipline your child is often very unpleasant. We do it because we want our kids to learn from their mistakes and move forward. What happens though,  if your child never seems to learn from their mistakes? This appears to be the case my son Gavin. He honestly never learns from his mistakes. He does the same things,  over and over again. It's extremely frustrating for all involved and made discipline next to impossible. It doesn't matter how we hold him accountable or how many times we explain things,  he makes the same choices almost every time. To me,  discipline is only effective if it works.  In Gavin’s case,  nothing works and we are constantly having to shift gears and think outside the box. Every specialist…

People ask me all the time,  "how do you do it?"  The truth is,  I don't know. I don't know how I keep going. Having said that,  I have three really good reasons to keep doing it.  These guys are my motivation for everything in my life. At the end of the day,  I love to check in on them while their sleeping.  It's just one of those priceless and peaceful moments that only seem to come out at night. I totally live for these guys....

I thought I would take a minute and update you all on how I'm doing.  It's been a while since I talked about my battle with depression. My personal war with depression is still raging on. Every day is a battle for control.  The depression wants control over me but I do everything possible to stay in control of it. With everything we have going on, keeping ahead of the depression is vital to moving forward.  In order to do that,  I take my medications (Paxil,  40mg per day) and really,  really try to exercise every day. I have my blog and maintaining it is extremely therapeutic.  Sharing our story from my perspective allows me to unload all of my feelings and leave it here.  By doing so,  it allows…

Today,  we had a really quiet,  peaceful and memorable moment.  Both of the younger boys wanted to snuggle Daddy at the same time.  Typically,  this can lead to a fight but they did really well and that's awesome.  These moments are definitely much lighter than many others.  I live for these moments because it reminds me of when they were babies and we didn't know any of the things we know own now.  It was just peaceful moments, find with hope for the future. 

Curious.  Can anyone point out something about this sign that bugs them?

Something that I have learned while on my journey as a special needs parent,  is that parenting is not an exact science. In fact,  in my personal experience,  parenting in general consists of a whole lot of trial and error. The very nature of trial and error means that mistake are bound to happen. However,  through those mistakes,  we learn to become better parents. This is an absolute truth with the Lost and Tired family.  I make mistakes all the time,  I mean it's not like there is an instruction manual that tells me what to do. Parenting in and of itself is difficult but special needs parenting...that's in a class all to itself. Sometimes the only thing you can do is guess at what the right thing to do…

Gavin has made it through a third day without a single meltdown.  So far,  this new approach is working.  I have to give Gavin a lot of credit because he's making better choices and that's all on him.  :-) So,  keep up the great work.  This has the potential to be a good summer.  This was taken at therapy on Monday.  Everyone was getting along and having fun.