Lately, I have been approached by people sharing their views about kids with Autism and Autism in general. Many positive or at least realistic but also some extremely negative. The one I would like to address this morning, once again, is whether or not a child with Autism can ever amount to anything or be successful in life. Success is a relative term and so everyone has a different definition of what success is. Success becomes even more difficult to define when we are talking about a child with Autism. Autistic children kinda live life "outside the box". So the standards that we, as society, use to base success on simply don't apply here. Societies definition of success tends to gravitate towards things like money, power and fame. While those…

I love my family unconditionally. I truly mean that. Sometimes, though everything is just to much. As the only "typical" person in the house, I find myself, at times, the "odd man out". I'm a gifted communicated. I can talk to anyone about anything and not have any problems. However, when it comes to my family, I struggle to the point of utter frustration. Everyone, including Lizze,  requires a different approach when it comes to communication. This is really the only "issue" Lizze and I ever really have. Considering everything we have been through over the last 10 year's, I'm actually quite proud of that. The frustration for me is that I can never just "talk" to anyone in this house. Everyone requires a concerted effort on my part to…

As you may or may not be aware, I have added an Autism and Special Needs Parenting Support Group to this blog. Kellie has posted a question and is seeking some advice from the community. She is facing the challenge of dealing with anti-social behavior and is wondering how others in the community deal with this type of aggressive behavior? Please take a second, sign up for the group and share your experience and or advice. I would be very interested to see what everyone's experience is with this type of behavior and I know Kellie would love the help. The actual post can here found here Lost and Tired's Autism Support is found at http://lostandtired.com/autismsupport of by click this link.   Thanks everyone.. :)

A few posts back I was discussing the differences between Aspergers and Autism. I was sharing how profoundly different it it to raise a child with Autism as apposed to Aspergers. My experience today is a PERFECT example of what I mean. Emmett has been running a fever the past few days. Since yesterday, he has been acting like he's in pain. The problem is that he can't tell us if he is. Lizze and I thought maybe he had a toothache or maybe his throat hurt but we weren't sure. When your child can't communicate it's a truly helpless feeling. When you think your child is in pain but they just can't tell you, it's heartbreaking. In Emmett's case, it turned out to be a sore throat. One of the major challenges…

As if we weren't busy enough already,  we now have therapies EVERY SINGLE day of the week. Gavin is restarting OT as well. Actually, Gavin started OT yesterday. Gavin used to be in speech, OT and PT until he was simply to violent. However, Gavin gets those every week at school anyway so all that happened was we were no longer doubling up. The problem is that Gavin is regressing in these areas and since school is out for the summer he would be without these therapies all together. So we had Gavin "re-evaluated". Turns out Gavin's muscle tone is actually worse then Emmett's. Emmett's is so bad that Eastgate says he needs braces on his lower legs and ankles. I think I forgot to mention that before (I'll touch…

This is the very first Friday that the boys no longer have school. I'm not sure...scratch that....I KNOW we aren't ready for this. We struggle during the school year when they are gone for most of the day. I love my boys but they are very challenging and with Lizze down for the count most of the time, it's going to be a VERY long summer. In my little "fantasy world" I would like to take the boys camping, to Cook Forest State Park, in Clarion PA. This is my ABSOLUTE favorite place in the world, at least that I have actually been to.  The reality of a trip like this would most likely be a disaster. Lizze doesn't do well with bugs and we would be in the middle…

In an effort to stabilize the financial side of our lives we have been working on something that we will be launching shortly. We are hoping that this will help to better provide for our children's needs. The Vault (tentative name) is a medical record binder. Here is a summary of what this is and how it came to be. Lizze wrote this to explain better what this is all about. As the mother of three Autistic boys, I remember daydreaming with each pregnancy about their childhood. How their pediatrician would keep the medical records and I would only bring them in for appointments once a year, unless they were sick. Then my boys were born and things were obviously bound to be different. My oldest has numerous specialists mostly revolving around…

So this morning Gavin was getting ready to go to OT....oh yeah Gavin has started OT again (I'll post about that later). Anyway, Elliott came down stairs and told me that "Gavin needs to learn how to use mouthwash the right way". I told Elliott Gavin doesn't use mouth wash. Elliott said, "yes he is daddy and he spit it all over the sink".  Let's pause for just a minute to bring everyone up to speed. Gavin has struggled with PICA for many years. One of his most favorite things to ingest was mouthwash. We discovered this about 2 years ago. He had ingested a bottle of kids mouthwash. After a call to poison control and a trip to the ER we have removed this stuff from the house and…