After many,  many years with Sprint,  we decided it was time for a change. Over the past year,  the service in my area has gone down hill,  dramatically. As we haven't had a land line in probably 4 or 5 years,  we relied solely on our cell phones.  As early adopters of smartphones,  we have come to rely of them heavily for all forms of communication with the outside world.  Sprints data service over the past 8 months has been quite literally, unusable. Many people have been switching to Sprint for their unlimited plans.  This surge of new customers overwhelmed and already saturated network causing capacity issues.  Basically,  more people were trying to use the service than Sprint could handle. To make matters worse,  Sprint recently spent $22 billion to…

It's only the first day of a 16 day Christmas break and I'm already a donkey on the edge.  The kids have already had enough of each other and Emmett is absolutely miserable.  If Emmett ain't happy,  ain't nobody happy. He woke up front his nap and has done nothing but scream and cry.  I can't seem to comfort him.  He wants things we don't have at the moment and I'm honestly not even sure what they are.  I picked him up and walked him out of the kitchen.  He was not happy and was kicking.  I wasn't prepared and he kicked me square in...um...my fellas. For a 3 year old,  he has a wicked kick.  I know he didn't mean to do that but that's not a whole lot…

I've only been up for a short time and already Gavin has managed to ask me the same question,  over and over and over and over.  To his credit,  at least he's asking the same question in different ways.  Although,  it doesn't make it any easier to take.  It's like listening to a scratched record,  repeating the same chorus,  over and over..  It drives me to the brink of insanity. It gets to the point where I just have to send him to his room.  What do you folks do to survive the repetition?  Posted from WordPress for Android

I love all of my kids,  I really,  truly do.. With that said,  Emmett is requiring me for absolutely everything.  He is glued to my side and I can't seem to get any alone time until he goes to bed. I don't know where this phase came from but he won't let Lizze help him with anything right now.  I love having Emmett's unending and undivided attention,  however, I'm gonna need a break or an Emmettectomy if you will. :-) Posted from WordPress for Android

Gavin just came downstairs to tell me that he just had a scary thought.  Scary Thoughts are Gavin's way of describing his visual hallucinations. He told me that he was walking in the bathroom and spikes went through his feet. What the hell do you even say to that? The scary thought I'm having is that his meds are no longer working. Posted from WordPress for Android

I've been a special needs parent for almost 11 years now. In all this time I have learned so much,  not only about my kids,  but also about myself. I could say that special needs parenting is such a pleasure and just so rewarding.  The problem with that is that it's simply not true,  at least for me and my experience.  While it's true that special needs parenting can be rewarding,  in my experience,  it's also tedious,  overwhelming,  exhausting as well as financially and emotionally draining.  My experience raising three boys in different places on the Autism Spectrum, has been one of great challenge.  I often find myself constantly putting out fires as apposed to actually making forward progress. I was thinking today about why that is,  and I think…

Screaming.  That's all I have heard this weekend.  Between Elliott whining,Emmett screaming and Gavin melting down,  the little bits of sanity I had left are now refugees fleeing to safety somewhere far away. I used to love the holidays,  however,  now all I can see is the overstimulation it brings.  Someone needs to invent something like sunblock,  only it would filter out all the things that would be deemed overstimulation. Thus preserving my children and subsequently my sanity. Sadly there is nothing out there that can provide the same results other than avoiding the activities that contribute to the overstimulation.  That just sucks. The main issue at this point is just how fragile Gavin has become. It takes nothing to set him off anymore.  We narrowly avoided a meltdown already…

I thought that I would share a cold Ohio winter welcome with all of you. We have our first snow storm that has actually brought with it accumulation. We have a long winter ahead of us and it's already pretty cold. I hope you are all staying warm if it's cold where you are. Posted from WordPress for Android