In honor of the 4th anniversary of Gavin's adoption. I wanted to share the letter I wrote to the judge, petitioning for the right to adopt him. This is a very emotional letter and in it, I share what it felt like to lose him to #Autism.  This may also give you a little more insight into why our lives have turned out the way they have. It's been an uphill battle since the beginning.  Happy Gotcha Day Gavin. No matter what, we will always love you. :-)   To whom it may concern, Why do I want to adopt Gavin? What does it mean to be a father? I have been asked the question, Why do I want to adopt Gavin? This should be very simple to answer but it is…

This is completely random but I thought it could be interesting nonetheless. So here's what happened. Emmett has this thing about watching TV while hanging upside down. I suspect this is sensory related but it could also be an Emmett-ismas well. I thought for today's discussion, we could share the peculiar ways our kids like to watch TV.

We were able to figure out why Emmett has been less than pleasant the past few days. He's hit a new fever flare. His mouth is covered in sores and he's miserable. This means that for the next 7-10 days, he's going to be just as miserable. I'm not looking forward to this, as I'm sure Emmett isn't either. You can see two of those sores in the picture below. You just have to look through the chocolate coconut ice cream all over his face.

As I lay on the couch to write,  I find myself buried alive.  I'm not buried alive in work, stress or housework.  Okay, well I am but that's not what I'm referring to.  Right now, I'm buried alive in dogs. That's right, dogs. Bella and Maggie are determined to absorb all of my stress through the process of osmosis. Maggies laying across my legs and Bella is laying across my waist. They're sorta like a 125 lbs of weighted blanket.  I can understand why Lizze and the boys find comfort in this. 

I can't quite explain how it feels to send a child away for the good of the family. I keep thinking that I can make some profound statement that will help you understand, but I'm at a loss for words. My good friend Carol Young from the awesome website Why not Fathers is going through something very similar with his son Marc. Honestly, I don't know too many people that have had to do something like this. I think that I've known, on some level, that this was always going to happen. In reality, we really did make it work for a long time. Having said that, this was long overdue. I've said this before but I'll say it again. At this point, I'm still pretty numb because Gavin's been…