Elliott is in a reading contest at school.  The challenge is for him to read for 20 minutes a night.  The classroom with the most hours, wins a pizza party.  At least that's my understanding. With all the recent Gavin drama, we have gotten a bit behind on the reading.  However, Elliott has been reading almost every night and is actually reading by himself.  One of the reasons I got him the guide to his New Super Mario Bros 2 game is because I wanted him to make his passion for video games, advance his education.  He's working very hard to read this guide in order to advance in the game. He's honing his reading skills without even realizing it. Tonight he fell asleep surrounded in his favorite books.  This…

For dinner last night, we had homemade pizzas. The boys each made their own and did a fantastic job.  I wanted to share their creations.  They each made theirs a little different.  Elliott put his peperoni on top of the cheese, while Emmett put his underneath the cheese. When Emmett realized that his was different than Elliott's, he panicked and had a meltdown. In the end, he was okay with what he made.  He didn't eat more than a bite but he was okay. I explained to him that his pizza was perfect because he made it all by himself.  I told him that no one else could make a pizza quite the way he did.  That made his pizza very special. Sometimes when dealing with a 4 year old…

We've all heard the phrase, squeaky wheel gets the grease. In the Lost and Tired family, we have a version of this called he who cries the loudest, gets the attention. With 3 boys on the #Autism spectrum, there always seems to be something going on and somebody either crying or screaming about something.  I'm not saying that this happens simply because of the #Autism. Typically it's related to sensory issues or perhaps anxiety.  These things are just common amongst people on the #Autism spectrum. Anyway,  as a matter of survival or self-preservation, we gravitate towards the one that is the loudest.  I realize how bad that sounds but there is some logic to this.  Typically, in my family, we are very sensitive to loud noise.  So it stands to…

Here is the disclaimer.  Hopefully, this will help to avoid some of the hate mail. Please keep in mind that I'm referring to the impact #Autism has on my kids. I'm not referring to my kids themselves. My poor little Emmett John is in a fever flare again.  We noticed yesterday, that his tongue is full of little sores.  Typically, his mouth is full of really big sores when a flare up occurs.  This is new to us and aren't sure if this is better or worse than normal. Note this picture is from a previous flare. Hopefully you get the point though. I say that because the actual volume of sores is higher than normal.  They are smaller but there are more of them. Emmett doesn't really tell us…

As loud and energetic as Emmett can be, I really appreciate these peaceful quiet moments. Yes, they are few and far between but I love watching him sleeping and not in any pain from the mouth sores associated with his fever disorder. This afternoon he fell asleep watching Penguins of Madagascar. Five minutes before I snapped this picture, he was screaming his head off. Now he's resting and hopefully preparing to wake up in a better mood. :-)

Lizze and I talked to the boys about Perry the tortoise.  Yes, they renamed her Perry, because she doesn't do anything.  However, the conversation didn't go well and ended with Elliott sobbing and hyperventilating.  Maybe I'm weak. Perhaps even a bad parent.  I simply couldn't do that to him. He has so much in his plate right now and I just can't be responsible for adding more to his plate. I can make this work its just going to be a bit more work for me but that's okay.  I'll have to rebuild at least part of the table to dog-proof the thing. This just was on my ever growing list of things I have to accomplish. As far as the potential health risks go, they are minimal, we didn't…