Here is the banner that my friend Johnny Bravo from ppcgeeks.com helped me to design. He did a great job with this banner and I simply made a few changes to the text. Autism Awareness has taken root in the PPCGeeks and xda-developers communities. Many people are showing support by using this banner in their signature. Others have created their own. There are several threads now dedicated to Autism Awareness and I think that's awesome. This is proof that Autism Awareness can work in even the most unlikely of places. Thanks everyone for the support.... Here is the one associated with my ROM. Here is an unbranded version as well.

I thought I would take a pic of some Elliott's artwork from the walls of his class room. He is so proud of these and I'm proud of him...    

I have reached a point where I feel it may be time to re-evaluate a lot of things. Raising 3 special needs kids and trying to care for my wife is like 4 full time jobs. It literally requires every ounce of everything I have. If I had an unlimited supply of "everything" then it wouldn't be a problem. You may have guessed that I don't and so it is....a problem. I'm stretched WAY to thin and it's like I can feel the fibers that make me who I am beginning to snap under the constant, ever increasing tension. I need to re-evaluated my priorities. When you have to quit your job to stay at home and take care of your family there are sacrifices you have to make. You…

My day started at about 2am this morning. I rolled over and opened my eyes to find Gavin standing there just staring at us while we were sleeping. Let me tell you, the "creep factor" was in FULL swing. He scared me to the point I jumped out of bed. Then he looks at me with a smile on his face, acting like he'd been awake for hours and says "I flooded the bathroom". He says this as he's giggling and walks out of the room. I go into the bathroom to find the carpet soaked. Turns out he over flowed the toilet. Now that actually takes some effort to overflow our toilet. I have had this conversation with more times then I care to remember. I tell him that…

Despite my best efforts to manage everything I'm failing. There are times when it's less obvious then others and there are times it just smacks me in the face. Today was one of those days for me. It was a rough day to start with but I was managing pretty well I thought. I was in the kitchen eariler today and when I walked back out into the living room I saw something that just killed me. Lizze was on her hands and knees trying to crawl up the stairs to the second floor because she couldn't walk. I was hit with the realization of how bad things have actually gotten. I realized just how much I'm not able to do for my family. I can't ease my wife's burden…

This is just one of those little life moments that I try to keep with me when things are really bad. It helps to keep me centered and remember that sometimes things are ok. Emmett gave me one of those moments today. I thought I would share it with you all.   [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJDgYNEG_1k[/youtube]

With everything that has gone on since Gavin's 11th birthday in January his 11 year check up has pushed back. He's at the doctors all the time so it's really more of formality but we wanted to get it done. We went into this knowing Gavin had at least 2 vaccines today. Gavin was getting more and more anxious the longer we had to wait. That's a very common trait amongst Autistic kids in general. Gavin is physically growing well. He is 58.3 inches tall and weights in at a whopping 79.75 lbs. While we were waiting Gavin was becoming increasingly more aggitated. I tried distracting him by talking about the story he's writing. Gavin decided that he didn't want to wait anymore and wanted to get it over with.…

I know that not everyone agrees with these videos. However, it's SO IMPORTANT that people understand what families like mine are dealing with. Autism is a SPECTRUM disorder. That means that not everyone is the same. Many of us struggle every second or every minute of every hour of every day just to survive and do it all again the next day. This side of Autism is so rarely discussed and it NEEDS to be because my family and the families like mine need help and understanding. This video only shows the bathroom door but you hear Gavin's reaction to something as "simple" personal hygiene. I know "simple" is relative and for kids like Gavin it's a VERY big deal. Most people probably wouldn't think this was a big deal and…