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, …

I have spoken a few times about our struggles to locate all of Gavin socks that have mysteriously disappeared. The thought crossed our minds that maybe we couldn't find them because they were gone.....and by gone I mean digested.  Youay think that sounds far fetched but the reality is quite to the contrary. You see,  Gavin struggles with PICA.  PICA is where someone eats none food items,  like,  paper, blankets, paper clips,  plastic fish,  toilet paper, body fluids,  the stuff between your toes and the smudge inside the drain of the bathroom sink. It sounds disgusting,  I know.  However,  those are all confirmed items,  that have been on the menu for Gavin at some point. Knowing that he has at one point in time,  ingested each of these things,  makes…

We got a call this morning from Lizze's parents. They wanted to take Lizze, myself and Emmett to breakfast.  It was really nice to be able to get out.  After breakfast,  they took Emmett with them to Amish Country to look at furniture.  I took to replacement her favorite pen and do so window shopping. It didn't last long because she couldn't walk anymore and needed to go home and sleep. It was fun while it lasted.  It may not have been a lot of time,  but I'm grateful to have spent it with her.  Thanks for taking us out to breakfast and hanging out with Emmett.  :-)

The boys are having a penny war at school.  Each class room is collecting pennies and the one to collect the most,  wins a special prize. All of the money collected will go to a family the school has adopted for the holidays this year.  So everything is for a very good cause. Typically,  what we have done in the past was collect pennies and turn them in on the last day,  as kind of a surprise,  "here's a crappy load of pennies". Now that we have to boys at this school,  they are essentially competing against each other as rival class rooms.  I had to take a different approach this year. I wanted to boys to feel special and really help their respective class to win.  So I decided…

Today went from being,  insanely busy to an empty schedule. Emmett's therapies were canceled today cause the therapist are doing continuing education.  As much as Emmett benefits from the therapies, I'm grateful for the day off.  I spent all afternoon there yesterday,  with Gavin.  I can sit here and say,  "that I want to use the time to get the house in order",  however,  I'm smart enough to realize that will likely not happen today.  I'm physically exhausted and still fighting off this head cold,  so the likelihood I going to accomplish anything major today is quite remote. While that upsets me that I can't accomplish what I need to,  the other part of me is saying screw it. I've been going pretty much nonstop for the last couple of…

I was asked by Matt and Jillian McCabe to share this post her on Lost and Tired.  I never comfortable asking for help but they are trying to do something amazingly generous for my family and I want to help in any way that I can..... I would like to say how deeply touched I am that something like this was put together to help my family. I'm infinitly grateful and completely humbled by the generosity this has brought thus far. Thank you to everyone, especially the McCabe's, for reaching out. Thank You . :-) This is from the "Move The Gorski's website and can be found ------------> Here        Rob Gorski is the creator and author of the "Lost and Tired" blog and founder of Android4Autism. He is husband to…

I thought I would touch base with everyone and talk about how I'm doing some far since starting Paxil. I think it's important that we discuss things like this so that people have a better understanding of what goes on when they hear depression. I also want to remove the taboo and stigma attached to depression. As many of you know,  I went back on Paxil,  an antidepressant,  a few months ago.  This was done because I was no longer able to cope with everything and I wanted and needed to get help. So I did that by meeting with my doctor and having a very honest conversation. We decided that Paxil was the right medication forme and so I began taking 20mg / day.  The improvement seemed to happen…