Blog - Page 443 of 1612

Why I’ve had a change of heart about #Autism Awareness month

As one ages through life, one tends to gain wisdom and insight that they were previously lacking. What I mean by wisdom is learning from one's past and gaining insights into different ways of thinking. I'm absolutely no exception to this, and I want to share something that I've recently had a change of heart about. We all know that April is Autism Awareness month. This is the one time of year where the world's eyes and ears are pointed in our direction (the Autism community). In the past, I've taken a pretty hardline stance on the Autism Speaks Light it up Blue campaign. I've been very vocal about how I feel that buying a blue light bulb is more about padding the bottom line than raising Autism Awareness. While…

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March 23, 2017

Announcements

Here’s what happened

It's been a few days and there are a few reasons for that. The biggest however, is that this site went down and it took me almost three days to fix it. I'm still not sure what happened but I've rebuilt from the ground up and I think everything is in the exact same place it was before. I've been extremely frustrated since this while thing began and I dislike not knowing what's actually wrong. There's still a few things that need to be located, identified and fixed but I'm waiting on the guys at Automattic to get back to me. I just wanted to apologize for the down time and thank you all for sticking around. There's a lot to update you on and I'll do my best to…

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March 22, 2017

My thoughts

I’m sick for a few days and it all goes to hell

First things first. The boys had a great day at school and received a big surprise when they got home, in the form of my Dad taking all three of them to dinner. ☺ I mentioned in the title about things going to hell. That's in reference to this blog. While I was sick, I didn't access the site for almost three days. When I tried getting back on track today, it's honestly like everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. There were all kinds of issues that began popping up and I spent most of the day trying to figure it out. It wasn't a security type issue but rather code corruption somewhere and I couldn't track it down. Long story short, it's all fixed and ended up being…

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March 21, 2017

Autism Parenting Woes / Emmett John / My thoughts

Why getting my youngest with #Autism to school is so exhausting

Remember last night when I said that I suspected Emmett was going to have a difficult time this morning? That turned out to be the understatement of the year. Emmett was beside himself all morning long. Lizze and I tried forever to help him through whatever emotional hurdle was in his way but we didn't manage to do that. We did however, manage to get him to agree to go with me and talk to his teachers. In order to further redirect his attention away from his anxieties, I picked up donuts while getting gas on our way to school. We ended up being thirty minutes late but we made it. He didn't even need me to walk him in because the redirection was a success.. This is great news…

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March 20, 2017

Emmett John / My thoughts

He’s making himself sick over this stupid State testing

As of 1:30 AM this morning, both Elliott and Emmett will be returning to school. I should say that they are healthy enough to return to school. Elliott shouldn't be a problem but I think Emmett's going to be. Why would I say that? He's already so nervous about going back that he's woken up and climbed into bed with us twice. Apparently, there was State testing last week and he missed it cause he was sick. These tests always make him sick to his stomach, even though he's the kid with the highest scores. In fact, the last test had him scoring the highest in the school. He's never done poorly on one but he puts so much pressure on himself, it literally makes him nauseous. Unfortunately, he doesn't…

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March 20, 2017

Gavin / My thoughts

It’s the not knowing that kills me as a parent

It's becoming clear that Gavin's struggling more and more. Unfortunately, there's no way to know if this is another leg of his journey with Childhood Disintegrative Disorder, the result of changes to his medications or just par for the course. His level of functionality is decreasing and doing so in weird areas. Things like self-awareness are slipping. There's never been a great deal of that to begin with, so this change is noticeable. What do I mean by self-awareness? Gavin had an ice cream sandwich this afternoon. About three hours later, I took the boys to the park to hunt Pokémon for short while before picking up their pizza for school tomorrow. I wasn't paying attention to Gavin's face, like I usually do before we leave and I was caught…

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March 20, 2017

Gavin / My thoughts

1 BIG reason I’m worried about Gavin

This is an important update on Gavin's current overall status and one that's a bit concerning, although not entirely unexpected. Gavin's officially off of Lithium for the first time in over a decade. We were a bit caught off guard at the timing because we were supposed to stop this coming Thursday but when his new box of meds was delivered this weekend, it was devoid of Lithium. By the time we would be able to address this, it would be close to the original cutoff date anyway. Frankly, it doesn't matter, aside from finding out why they pulled it in the first place because we never told them to. Anyway, Gavin's off of Lithium for the first time in over ten years, and we're bracing for a major unknown.…

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March 19, 2017

My thoughts

I feel like I’m being held hostage by my sick kids

Both Elliott and Emmett we're home from school, as I mentioned earlier. Both boys also seemed to be doing better during the first half of the morning. Unfortunately, shortly after the lunch hour, things went downhill. Lizze and Gavin were both sleeping. It was just the E's and myself in the living room. Elliott fell asleep on the one couch and ended up sleeping for well over four hours. The poor kid would stir a bit, cry and fall back asleep. 🙁 Mr. Emmett climbed up on my lap and fell asleep in a really awkward position. He was clearly comfortable but I was far from it. I was twisted in a weird position and all I wanted to do was straighten my leg out but I couldn't without moving…

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March 16, 2017