Too cute
Elliott was having a frustrating day and Ruby decided that he needed her to sit on his chest and keep him safe.. Too cute....
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May 1, 2018
An important update on Ruby, our cute little Chorkie
This is a short but interesting update, dealing with how Ruby is doing since Maggie passed. We've had animals pass away before and there's almost always a change in those that remain. When Cleo died last year, Blue (our only remaining cat) became much more outgoing than he'd been previously. When Maggie died a little over a week ago, Ruby didn't seem too impacted, at least in a negative way. She refused to eat at first because we had her trained that Maggie went first. It took some doing to undo that. That was really biggest thing we noticed at first. As time has passed, Ruby seems to be coming into her own. She's more relaxed and confident since she's been the only dog. When we come home, she quietly…
April 24, 2018
Helping my kids deal with loss
It's been one week since Maggie passed away and we wanted to try to keep the kids distracted today. Kids with Autism are especially prone to struggling with loss and tend to benefit a great deal from distraction. Trying to process already confusing emotions is difficult and at least my kids tend to perseberate. It's been a rough seven days for most of us and it somehow seemed fitting to spend the one week anniversary of her death, outside enjoying the sun. She loved being outside and basking in the sun. Lizze and I took the boys to the park and let them explore this afternoon. Click the image below to open the gallery. [foogallery id="79085"] The boys had a great time. We all had a great time actually. Everyone…
April 20, 2018
It’s funny how things work out
Tomorrow marks one week since Maggie passed away. I'm not sure if the significance of the day will strike the kids or not but I'm certainly not going to raise their attention to it. We've been preparing for awhile now that Maggie wouldn't be around forever but we had no idea how soon she would be taken. When I stumbled across Ruby a few months ago, I had no idea how important that moment would be. We would have survived Maggie's passing and eventually moved on, because that's the way life is. I will say that having Ruby a part of our lives has made the adjustment a little easier, especially for the boys. She may only be the size of my shoe but she packs a whole lot of…
April 19, 2018
It’s been an emotional roller-coaster this weekend and I’m exhausted
It's been an emotional weekend for all of us here in The Autism Dad household. Losing Maggie has been devastating for all, but especially for Elliott and Emmett. They're feeling the loss a bit differently because they have basically never known a time where Maggie wasn't here. They were both so young when we got her, it seems like she was always part of our family. Lizze and I have been trying to keep the boys distracted because that helps them to move forward. Saturday was pretty rough. There was a great many tears shed throughout the day and we really tried to keep the boys occupied, but it didn't always help. On Sunday, all three of the boys hung out with their Grandparents for a large part of the…
April 16, 2018
Maggie passed away last night and we’re all heartbroken
In November of 2008, Emmett was almost six months old and we were a dog-less family, not looking for a dog. In a completely random occurrence, Lizze stumbled across a picture of a dog with the most amazing smile. We weren't looking for a dog because we had just recently had Emmett but we found ourselves drawn to the picture and it turned the dog was actually somewhat local to us. Lizze wanted to go look at her in person and for whatever I went along with it. It was one of those spontaneous things that wasn't really like us at the time. There was just something about this dog and we made the forty-five minute drive to meet her in person, not knowing what to expect. What we didn't…
April 14, 2018
Something cool happened in our tank today
I wanted to take a minute and share this because the boys really thought it was cool and frankly, it kinda was. We're all about our fish tank and we have lots of interesting creatures living in our aquatic ecosystem. We also have two small crayfish in there as well. There aren't any predators and the water is warm, they are growing like crazy. This is the closest I've come to actually catching one of the crayfish shedding its shell. We know they do it and we find the empty shells all the time but we've yet to witness this happening. I was pretty close today and I wanted to share the pictures. Click the image to see the gallery [foogallery id="76838"]
April 4, 2018
Some sad news about our dog
Maggie is our roughly twelve year old English Staffy. We've had her since she was two years old and she's the best dog anyone could ask for. We have so many amazing memories with her and she's a loved member of our family. Sadly, I fear we're reaching a point in time where we may have some very difficult and painful decisions to make. Maggie is almost completely blind and deaf. She got tumors in several places, including places where they've already been removed. She's becoming very difficult to manage because she doesn't respond most of the time and just wanders around aimlessly, when we take her outside to use the bathroom. Tonight, she fell down an entire flight of step, only stopping when she slammed into the fire place.…
March 13, 2018