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.
I attended a gathering of parents with special needs children a couple of nights ago. There are a lot of things stirring in our community that bore discussion, but this phrase, spoken by one of the Dads there stuck in my head. We all want the same things… Our children may be different in various…
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I scrambled up the hill to my daughter’s “old school” to pick up my son from his “new class.” My daughter attended this school from Early Intervention through Kindergarten before being moved to our neighborhood school for first grade. I know most of the Early Intervention staff pretty well, and I know the IEP process…
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Since we’re walking through another season of learning curve, this time related to my mother-in-law’s needs, I have been realizing again the importance of friends…and not just any friends, but friends who really know what you are going through. For us, this is not just people who have taken care of an aging parent, but…
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This will be short because my finger is hurting. It happens to be the index finger on my right (dominant) hand…perhaps the finger I use most…or at least I’m noticing how much I use it now that it’s hurting. You know how that goes. I think it is some sort of tendonitis or repetitive stress…
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I arrived a few minutes before the bell that ends the school day. I realized that one of my friends was trying to get my attention and directing my gaze down the outdoor corridor outside my daughter’s classroom. I saw my daughter walking toward me with another friend of mine – fortunately one that has…
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I’ve just about decided I don’t like the word mild – except as it relates to cheddar cheese and salsa. Mild should come with a warning label… I believe I recognized the signs of “mild” cognitive decline due to dementia in my mother-in-law a couple of years ago. Although I did what I could to…
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For the first time since writing for 5 Minutes for Special Needs I am at a bit of a loss of what to write. Often I know days in advance what I will write, and it becomes a finely crafted piece before I hit publish. Usually at some point on Tuesday inspiration will strike and…
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You’ve already heard that April is Autism Awareness month. I’ve been thinking about it a lot recently… Thanks to my affiliation with 5 Minutes for Special Needs I was asked to review a documentary called Loving Lampposts. It is a beautiful movie, and it is due out on DVD yesterday. You can read my extensive…
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It’s hard to say when, exactly, we became members of the “sandwich generation.” If I had to guess I would say it started around the time that my husband flew to his mother’s home in order to drive her back to our home so that she could meet our twins. This was about six months…
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Last Friday I reached a limit of frustration trying to get my daughter out the door to school. Three days a week I juggle all three kids in the morning, to get everyone fed, dressed, packed and dropped off at their respective schools. On Friday Daddy had to leave early for a meeting in the…
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