Author Archives: Kimberly

Kimberly is the mother of three wonderful children: an eight-year-old who is somewhere on the autism spectrum, and twin four-year-olds who are just very busy little people. We live on routine with a side of novelty.

Giving and Receiving

I know I will love it no matter what it is, because it will be from the child, her way of telling me, “I love you, Mama.”

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Treading Two Paths

I was so hoping this year to focus on building social scaffolding for the child at school. I’m dreaming of setting up a circle of friends who will know, understand, and advocate on her behalf as her differences become more apparent to her peers. I am just beginning the process of working out what that…

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What Really Matters

I don’t know about all of you, but I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed again. Thanksgiving went better than could ever be expected, and throughout the weeks leading up to it and immediately after, I held everything else at arm’s length. I have never been a “Black Friday” participant, and this year more than ever we’re…

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Bullying and Special Needs

Last week Grandma visited us. This week we’re visiting Grandma. Things are still going well (hooray for new medicine!) but this will be short and sweet if only because our computer access here is limited, and any minute now five people will be asking me for their breakfast. I wanted to let you all know…

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What a Difference

I’ve had emotional whiplash all week. Grandma is visiting us this week. In case you don’t know the significance of those words you can read the worst part of it here. I’ve written about our struggles with her before. Turns out she does not have Alzheimers or dementia, per se, but the neurological damage she…

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Truth or Dare

We’ve hit another strange milestone. I think the child has learned how to lie. Not that she does it well, mind you. Previously she has been honest to a fault: Why is your brother crying? Because I hit him… Ah. Whether I liked the answer or not, at least I knew it was true. There…

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Different or Fancy?

It was a relatively easy, but somewhat mind-numbing task to accommodate the child’s fixed preferences at her place setting. We don’t have quite enough “matching” flatware pieces to make it to the next dishwasher run. We tend to run out of teaspoons and case knives before plates and bowls. Over the years of combining two…

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Thanksgiving

Oh, I know, it’s not even Halloween (quite) yet, but just like I’m sure you can find retail locations in your community that are a bit ahead of the game with the witches and ghosts keeping company with the Santas and menorahs, my heart is already set on Thanksgiving. Being thankful is good for you,…

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Strength in Numbers

It all started a little over two and a half years ago. We entered the room with no small amount of skepticism. We were embarking on “yet another behavior modification program” in a long string of attempts to bring our daughter’s aggressive defiant behavior into some semblance of appropriate. I, personally, was at my wit’s…

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It’s Not a Race

I think we are about to hit an interesting phase of our family. The younger apparently neurotypical siblings are about to reach certain developmental milestones before their big sister does.  Little boy has just about mastered his daytime toilet learning. One of our first signs that he was physically ready for this achievement was that…

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