Today's Vitory I brought to you by my oldest son,  Gavin. We get our water from a company called Clear Water.  He have a 5 gallon water cooler and so we have to refill the jugs about every week or so. Sometimes,  Gavin will tag along and always wants to help.  Typically,  Gavin can't seem to get the timing of shutting the water offer before it sprays everywhere. However,  on this occasion,  he did the entire process on his own. He put in the token and filled up the jugs without soaking himself in the process. He even wiped them down when he was done. This seems like an arbitrary skill but the reality is that he needs to know this kind of thing in order to function independently in…

After taking Lizze to the doctor's and running to the school to pick up the boys,  we finally arrived home. Upon approaching the front door,  all I wanted to do was get out of the cold and finish up some things around the house before Lizze got home.  The boys however,  had other plans.  They discovered that that bird bath was frozen over.  They wanted to feel the ice and poke at it with a stick. As tired as I was,  I remembered to take some of my own advice and seize the moment and help them to learn something new.  So we played with the ice for a few minutes and talked about what ice was and why it was there.  After a few minutes,  their natural curiosity was…

As a special needs father to 3 boys on the Autism Spectrum and husband to wife that is chronically ill,  I have quite a bit on my plate. For that reason,  I need to take great care in what I put on my plate,  my dinner plate that is. Over all I'm a healthy guy,  but that doesn't there aren't things I need to work on.  I need to get my cholesterol back in balance and a bit lower,  as well as lose weight. Before I became a special needs parent,  I was is amazing shape.  I worked out with a trainer 6 days a week,  and was built like a tank.  That all changed after I hurt my back on a run as a paramedic back in 2001.  I…

As you know,  my littlest minion,  Emmett,  struggles with speech and language.  Subsequently,  communication can be rather challenging at times. It's taken a great deal of time and effort to sorta......bridge that communication gap. As part of this communication gap, we have a hard time conveying requests to Emmett in a way he can understand. Having said that, Emmett has made huge progress this year. However, despite this progress, we find ourselves many times unable to effectively communicate back and forth with Emmett. Recently, we had a breakthrough of sorts. I don't remember exactly how we discovered this but how we discovered it, really doesn't matter. What does matter, is what we discovered and how well it has been working. I thought I would share what we have figured out in hopes that it may…

A few years ago we were struggling with bedtime,  even more than we are now.  After consulting our many doctors,  we decided to try Melatonin.  We were nervous about "drugging" our kids,  just to get them to sleep.  However,  we did a ton of research and our docs are top notch,  so we decided to give it a try.  OMG,  I don't know how we ever got along without it. Melatonin helps the boys peacefully drift off to sleep,  when it would normally have been a struggle. We only use it when it's needed but Melatonin has been proven safe and effective,  with few, if any side effects. We have found it work very quickly. Elliott,  for example, will take 2mls and be asleep before we finish reading his stories.…

For over 6 months now,  Gavin has been having his blood drawn every 7 days.  This is done to monitor is white blood cell count.  He's only a medication called Clozapine for schizoaffective disorder.  Clozapine is the most tightly controlled drug in the US. For the first 6 months,  he needs bloodwork every 7 days,  in order to refill his prescription for another 7 days.  We have reached a point where he will now be getting 14 days worth of pills at a time.  This means that he only needs his bloodwork done twice a month now.  It may not seem like much but to Gavin it's a pretty big deal. After today,  it will be two weeks before he needs stuck with a needle again.  As far as today's…

I wanted to share this with all of you because I'm soooooo proud on my little Emmett John. First let me start out by saying that a few times this year, I got into debates with a few parents of Autistic children who said an Autistic child can never be successful. I was really struck by this because, to me, it felt like they had given up on their kids before they even had a chance to prove them wrong. I suppose, that in the end, it comes down to how you define success. In my opinion, success is a very relative term and I truly believe my children are successful with every little victory we celebrate. It seems that some people define success by money and power, at least the parents I was…

I thought I would update everyone on Operation: Get my kids to eat their vegetables. My little green ops mission has been met with both, success and set back. The success has been mainly with Gavin and Emmett.  Conversely,  the set backs have involved Elliott,  who is,  hands down,  the pickiest eater in the Lost and Tired household. My goal is to get them eating their vegetables,  even without their knowledge.  I have found a why that has been largely successful,  the smoothies. I've been doing this for myself for a few years now,  but haven't applied this to the kids until more recently.  The deal is that if they want desert,  which they always do,  they have to have a smoothie first. This seems to work,  especially with Elliott, …