One of the things that I want to start this holiday season is the building of new traditions. Because of Gavin's very unique and demanding special needs,  we will be forced to avoid all the holiday excitement.  To be completely honest,  this is very distressing for me as seeing family and friends at the holidays is very important for me. However,  I'm trying to turn this into a more positive thing.  I'm going to do this by creating new holiday traditions.  So instead of staying back because of necessity,  we will stay back in order to observe our new traditions. The first one we are going to start is with the donating of old toys to the Domestic Violence Project.  This is a place for women and chdren that are…

The past few years we have been pretty conservative as far as decorations on the Christmas tree are concerned.  The reason is pretty simple.....Emmett. Emmett is endlessly curious and most of our decorations are glass. Also,  Lizze's cat like to climb the tree and play with the glass bulbs.  Many a glass bulb have met their fate at the paws of Cleo.  As far as Emmett concerned,  we don't want him breaking an ornimant and subsequently injuring himself. The other side of the coin is that Gavin gets way to excited and can't seem to settlement down.  So we have opted to keep things more....um...low key. This year however,  the boys decided to take things into their own hands and decorate the tree with their toys. So I've dubbed this…

One of the more difficult tasks I have as a special needs parent is having to treat my kids differently. I hate having to treat one of my different than another.  This is however,  one of those unavoidable things I have to do as a parent to 3 very special little boys. Part of what is so difficult about this inevitable situation when dealing with 3 boys,  in different places of the Autism Spectrum,  is having to exclude someone from something.  Feelings are almost always a causality.   The Lost and Tired family has had to deal with this for many years. Despite those many years of having to do this,  it never gets easier or feels any better.  In fact,  as the kids get older,  they become more aware of…

Have any of you ever experienced intolerance while out in public with your child?  Maybe a clerk in a store or perhaps a fellow customer?  How did you handle it?  I thought it would be interesting to share our stories.  Here's mine.  Last year while hunting for a van,  I was at a car dealership,  actually one of the largest in Ohio.  I was explaining to the salesman my family's situation and what we needed.  He stepped away for a fewinutes to crunch some numbers.  To my left,  there was a couple of sales people watching the news.  One of them,  a woman,  was very opinionated.  The story on the news was about a mother boycotting a restaurant for not allowing her Autistic child to enter the establishment because he…

Elliott has been asking for him and I to go do something.  I thought today would be a good day to try and hang out. He has been dying to go to Chuck E. Cheeses,  so I figured what the heck.  We could never do this with the other boys,  especially Gavin,  as it's way,  way to overstimulating.  Elliott is really excited and I can't wait to go spend some special time with my little man.  He so deserves some time away from the chaos. Update: I'm pleased to say that Elliott and I both had a really,  really good time.  He played tons of games and had pizza for lunch.  This was so worth it......

Have any of you folks ever had to deal with a manic child?  I don't believe it's very common. Having asked that question,  I want to vent about what is going on in the Lost and Tired house right now. Gavin is manic,  very,  very manic.  When he goes manic,  we experience a myriad of symptoms.  For starters, he kicks into extremely scattered mode. When he becomes extremely scattered,  he talks constantly,  about random and often incoherent things.  When I say constantly,  I mean constantly.  He never stops talking and it drives me crazy,  as it's doing now. He will walk into a room and just start talking,  and he doesn't seem to care about who he interrupts.  This is very likely do to his lack of impulse control,  which…

Gavin is done with his 5th antibody infusion.  I actually thought this would be his last one for the year but we will be back on December 30 for number 6. He did really well,  all things considered. I promised him ice cream if he did well,  so I will have to pony up.  :-)