Today was a rougher day than most.  Gavin had a more difficult day, full of less than stellar decisions. I will say that as the day went on, he did better and for that he deserves credit.  At bedtime, I told him what I always tell him.  I said, Gavin I love you. Have good dreams. Tomorrow is a clean slate, wiped of all today's mistakes.  Perhaps it sounds a bit cheesy but I want him to know that A) we love him tremendously and B) that everyday we start over with a clean slate. We still have consequences from our actions the previous day but we start over a new, hopefully using the mistakes we made yesterday to help us get through today. I know most of that is…

I wanted to share some good news with everyone.  As you know, my grandfather was in the hospital and ended up needing to have a tumor removed a few weeks ago. It turns out that not only does he have prostate cancer but it has spread to his pelvis. My parents and the rest of my Mother's siblings met with the doctor yesterday to discuss options and figure out prognosis. Everyone had questions and obviously concerns. While his particular form of cancer is pretty aggressive, they are going to begin a hormone treatment that is expected to basically put him in remission. They aren't promising anything because they can't. However, my grandfather is pushing 90 and is otherwise in good health.  The long and short of it is that they…

Today is one of those day that I'm overwhelmed by everything.  Gavin's had sort of a rough day, as has Elliott.  Lizze isn't feeling well and Emmett is all over the place. The house is a disaster and my phone still doesn't work right.  You may notice that from time to time, you see a post twice in a row.  That's being done courtesy of my crappy data connection with T-Mobile lately. Posts are partially submitting and the connection dies and it's submitted again because it didn't post the first time but ends up being posted twice. I'm not running this site and The My Autism Help Forums, completely from my phone. Thank God I still have that. Life just feels like it's simply too heavy to keep carrying everything…

Special Needs Parenting is one of those experiences that you must have first hand knowledge of in order to truly appreciate it's challenges. I'm going to speak only for myself and share a few ways that someone could brighten my day.  It goes without saying that these things would very likely brighten the day of many other Special Needs Parents as well.  I simply prefer not to speak for those who can speak for themselves, that's all. Make sense? Okay, awesome! One of the biggest things that I personally struggle with is the feeling of despair. There is so much that needs to get done that simply doesn't because I'm beyond overwhelmed,  exhausted and stretched entirely too thin.  Everyday I'm caring for three boys on the Autism Spectrum, one being…

This week I had the opportunity to test the MIRA Instant On Bathroom Scale.  I suppose there isn't really much to say about a bathroom scale, aside from it works or it doesn't. This particular scale by MIRA is very sleek and and lightweight. The scale itself is a matt black finish with chrome trim. The digital display is large and back-lit, allowing it to be easily read in low light conditions.  The scale itself is powered by 4 AA batteries, which are included in the packaging.  The scale measures upto 400lbs/180kg. You can switch between lbs and kg by pushing a button on the underside of the scale itself. The instant on technology works very well and is activated by simply standing on the scale.  This scale is perfect…

Every night when Emmett goes to bed, he puts his glasses on top of his dresser. Every morning when he wakes up, the first thing he does is put his glasses right back on. However, this morning was different. When he reached up for his glasses they were gone.  By the time we were able to locate them, it was too late.  This is what we found.  There is only one creature in our entire house capable of doing this act of depravity to Emmett's glasses.  The guilty party was none other than the klepto-kitty himself, Blue.  Blue is the cat that was guilty of stealing my last bluetooth headset and chewing it up. He steals the kids toys and runs off to chew them up as well.  This sucks…

I talked many times about the impact Reactive Attachment Disorder has on our family.  Gavin was caught messing with Elliott's head this morning.  When Gavin is in one of these situations and he's messing with someone, he's very careful not to get caught. This morning was messing with Elliott and causing a great deal of confusion.  It was nothing outwardly evil or anything like that. He was just pretending not to hear Elliott, knowing that Elliott was getting upset.  I realize that brothers mess with each other however, when one brother is a RAD kid, it's a safe bet that the innocence of sibling teasing doesn't apply. Anyway, Gavin was a bit careless this morning and he was caught in the act. Elliott is quite upset because he knows that…

This is one of those posts where I climb up on my soapbox and impart a few pearls of wisdom. I know, I hate unsolicited advice as much as the next person so think of this as more of a sharing of life lessons, I learned the hard way. Since becoming a special needs parent over a decade ago, I've learned a great many things. One of the things I learned is that I'm not done learning yet. There's also one thing that I learned the hard way and that's something that I want to share with you. With any luck, you can avoid some of the pitfalls that I didn't. This life lesson is so incredibly basic that I think it gets overlooked way too often because no one…