I just spoke with my claims adjuster at State Farm. I also spoke with Downtown Ford as well to get a total estimate. Well folks,  it's not looking good.  The estimate for repairs is over $2,000. The claims adjuster said that she hasn't received the official copy from the dealership yet but she does the the value of the van and we are looking at a total loss. Once the estimate gets into the system,  I'll hear from the total loss department and they will make me an offer.  I would love to receive back what we put into it but but that's simply never gonna happen.  In fact,  we will likely owe money and lose our van at the same time. This is because we just had $2,500 worth…

Last night as I putting Elliott in bed,  he told me that he doesn't have school today. I said,  of course you have school on Monday, why wouldn't you?  He was very insistent that he didn't have school.  I told him,  if it would make him feel better,  we could call the school in the morning and find out. Morning came and I told him to get ready for school.  He went and woke Gavin up.  Gavin came into my room and told me that they don't have school. Hearing this from Gavin is a different story.  I had assumed that Elliott had confused the holidays or something.  However,  having Gavin back him up changed things.  Gavin is rarely ever wrong when it comes to remembering dates and times ect. …

****This is the second very special guest post by Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg of Journeys with Autism.  She is heavily involved in raising awareness about the case of Amelia Rivera. Amelia Rivera is the little girl being refused an organ transplant because of “mental retardation”. I spoke with Rachel and asked how I could help and she provided this post, which is the second. Please read these posts and help spread the word about this grave injustice.****   Over the past few days, the story of Amelia Rivera has made the local, national, and international news. It’s been picked up by such media outlets as the AP, NBC News, ABC News, Good Morning America, Fox, and CNN. It’s nothing less than a miracle that this story has gotten so much attention, and it’s due to…

****This is a very special guest post by Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg of Journeys with Autism.  She is heavily involved in raising awareness about the case of Amelia Rivera. Amelia Rivera is the little girl being refused an organ transplant because of "mental retardation". I spoke with Rachel and asked how I could help and she provided this post, which is the first of two. Please read these posts and help spread the word about this grave injustice.****   Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in healthcare is the most shocking and inhumane. — Martin Luther King, Jr., March 25, 1966 By now, many of you are familiar with the story of Amelia Rivera, a three-year-old child with Wolf-Hirschhorn Syndrome who has been denied a life-saving kidney transplant at the Children’s Hospital…

There are many things about special needs parenting that can be very challenging. One of the things that I find to be exceptionally difficult is managing the resentment that can arise from having different rules for different kids. Let me clarify what I mean by resentment and where it's coming from. When you have more than one child, one of which has Autism, things can get very complicated. I'll use my family as an example. In the Lost and Tired family, all three of our boys are on the Autism Spectrum. Each of our children face different challenges and their ability to cope to with things varies greatly as well. Gavin, our oldest, is by far the most complex. He faces more than his fair share of challenges. His threshold for…

I thought I would change the tone of things a bit and improve the mood with a bit of humor. Today, I found myself asking the following question. Why is it,  that whenever I say I need to use the bathroom,  the line forms in front of me? Feel free to share with the rest of the class any questions you have been asking yourself. Can you top mine? Posted from WordPress for Android

I've mentioned a few times about Elliott’s broken DSi.  I explained that while we have the extended warranty,  Elliott picked the sticker with the serial number,  of the bottom. This has prevented us from getting his DSi replaced.  Yesterday,  on a whim,  I went to best Best Buys and spoke with the general manager, Bob Lewis.  I explained that Elliott has Autism and picked the serial number sticker off the bottom of his DSi. I told him that since that had happened,  his DSi had stopped working correctly.  We had wanted to get it replaced but I was told it wasn't possible because the serial number was missing. He asked me to wait a few minutes and he would look into it.  He came back and explained that the problem…

Do you ever wake up and within a very short amount of time, you realize it's gonna be one of those days? I had to run to Walgreens to get Gavin's prescriptions.  As I open the window to our rental car to speak to the pharmacist,  all the snow that had been on the roof decided to fall at that very moment. The drivers side of the car was covered.  Snow piled on my lap and filled the floor board as well as the inside door panel. It was quite a shock because was most definitely not expecting that to happen. I'm pretty sure that it's gonna be one of those days. Posted from WordPress for Android