When we left off last week, I was telling you how tired I was of telling Matthew that he will meet a nice girl “someday.” I developed a three step plan to help him. I’m aware that I will need to add many more steps along the way, but I thought it was best to…
Category Archives: Conditions and Diseases
No, we don’t have special needs cooties
I was at an event the other day with a bunch of bloggers. I struck up a conversation with another mom; when I mentioned my blog, she said, “Oh! I know that blog! I read it.” Pause. “But I don’t have a kid with special needs.” Grrrrrr. Why oh why did she have to mention…
Facilitating friendships with the opposite sex-Step One
I’ve grown tired of telling Matthew that he’ll meet a nice girl someday. I’ve decided to help him, and started by asking myself three questions: 1) What is the biggest obstacle that prevents Matthew from meeting girls? 2)What is the best way to help him with his socially awkward behavior so that he doesn’t scare…
My better half
I’m sitting in the car pecking this out on my BlackBerry. We’ve just fed the kids dinner, en route home from a weekend at the beach. “Are you going to tell everyone how well I feed Max?” Dave asks. “Yes!” I say. I’m dedicating this post to Dave, my better half. He really is a…
Spina Whatida?
As many of you know, I just adopted a 15 year old young man named Ronnie. Ronnie is deaf and has spina bifida. Since my youngest daughter is also deaf, making sure Ronnie has all the appropriate supports isn’t new to me. But the spina bifida is. I have a bunch of questions. For instance,…
How do you get the stress out?
This weekend, I was feeling kinda stressed. I had a lot of work to do, Max had a cold and was getting whiny, and I’d had barely any time to myself all week long. So I made Dave take the kids out for lunch so I could have the house to myself. Being alone in…
Mother of Quadruplets, one with autism, tells her story.
I have made some of the greatest friends because of Matthew, and I have learned a lot from them. Robin Hausman Morris is one of those friends and she has a most unusual perspective, so unusual that I’ve been trying to convince her to write a book. Robin started her career as an actress in…
The challenge with babysitters and our kids
We tried a new babysitter this weekend. I was having a garage sale Saturday morning, and we needed an extra pair of hands around to help with Max. So the daughter of one of our regular babysitters came by. She’s 25, and works at a daycare. She charged us more than we pay her mom…
Those little moments of awe
This weekend, it was glorious outside, and we went to a playground on Sunday, one we hadn’t been to in a couple of years. I watched in awe as Max dashes across the basketball court; he wasn’t running the last time we were here. I watched in awe as Max tried to climb the stairs…
10 ways to celebrate autism awareness month
If you are the parent of a child with autism, you have no doubt been getting a lot of well meaning phone calls from family and friends today. “Hi, turn on CNN quick! They’re doing story on autism.” “Did you watch the Today Show today? There was a girl on with her mother. She was…