On the day after Thanksgiving, I threw myself into Christmas. I woke up my husband early and insisted he go and get the tree and ornaments out of storage. It is our first Christmas in our new home, so I...
For years I've watched my son struggle to fit in. From the first day I dropped him at day care when he was two years old to the day I pulled him out of public school in the fourth grade;...
There are so many misconceptions about autism that I couldn't even begin to list them all here. Admittedly, when I first experienced my oldest being diagnosed with Aspergers, in 2005, I was full of misconceptions myself. However, seven years and a total of...
Can I be honest? When I first thought of the title for this post, it left a bad taste in my mouth. “Blessing” and “special needs” in the same sentence? Surely not! How can going to therapy 1-3 times almost...
As I reflect on the qualities I most admire in my daughter there are so many stories that make me proud to be her mom. One stands out and shows the one quality I am most thankful for in her......
Through our years of seeking ways for my daughter to be a part of our community, the most special place we have found is as the manager/helper for our girls' high school soccer team. As I spend the month of...
We are a society of people who do not give "unnecessary" thanks. We don't go out of our way to praise people for doing the "right thing". And it doesn't matter why they're doing the right thing, whether it's their...
Dear Son, I don’t know if you will ever be able to read this. I don’t know that one day you won’t be able to read books of all kinds and share your thoughts with me. You are only three...
As a blogger for quite some time now, I have sorta gravitated to certain types of bloggers. I tend to follow the bloggers that I can relate to. They aren't always special needs bloggers but they're real. By real I mean that...
Before I became a stay-at-home mom/zookeeper to four, I was the director of a nearby autism center. We ran all kinds of programs out of the university-based center but my favorites were the programs that involved the siblings. There was...
