Emmett spent the night at Lizze's parents house last night. He came home a few hours ago and just now woke up from his nap. Life was relatively calm and quiet last night and for much ofbthis morning. With that said, within 5 minutes of Emmett coming home, the screaming and fighting resumed as though it had been paused during Emmett's absence. Emmett went down for his nap and peace returned to the house once again. However, within minutes of him waking up, the battles resumed once more. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad Emmett's home because I miss him like crazy when he's gone. Having said that, it's clear that he is the source of most of the upheaval in the Lost and Tired household. I want to clarify…

Gavin has developed a really nasty cough. I don't know if it's asthma related or not. The immunologist told us when he gets like this we need to give him his rescue inhaler but it's not helping. We have very little experience with asthma so I'm unfamiliar with it outside of what I dealt with as a paramedic. The other concern that I have is, what if he's getting sick? What do you do for a child with no immune system of his own? I realize that this isn't anything new, but we know about it now so that changes everything. All I could try to do now is borrow my parents car and take Gavin tovthe ER. However, that will freak him out pretty bad and it may not…

I was wondering if your child is a perfectionist? We have struggles with this in the Lost and Tired household. All three of my boys have a tendency to want things perfect. However, Gavin is an absolute perfectionist, at least most of the time. Much of this stems from his abusive biological father. He used to tell Gavin things like "only losers make mistakes".  He had many more pearls of wisdom that he graciously bestowed upon Gavin, many along the same lines. Gavin, typically doesn't tolerate imperfection...especially from himself.  It seems that no matter how hard we work to overcome the whole perfectionist thing,  it just never seems to click. Do any of you folks ever deal with this sort of thing? If so, what have you done to work…

Today's victory is brought to you by Mr.  Elliott Richard's handyman service.  We have very, very old hardwood floors and the nails are popping out. These nails are are responsible for many socks meeting an untimely death.  Elliott decided to help address the problem.  He asked for my trim hammer and went around sinking all the nails he could find.  I supervised him closely but he did a very good job.  I try to make it a point to help my kids learn things that they will need to know later in life.  I encourage you all to do the same.

So,  I got a pretty big response to my post the other day about the fat squirrel.  In that post I mentioned that my neighbor feeds these guys little peanut butter sandwiches. Well,  this morning,  a black squirrel was sitting on my fence enjoying one of those sandwiches.  In fact,  it was so lost in this little sandwich,  that it didn't even notice me walking up to it to get the pictures.  I just thought,  you know,  if anyone had wanting to see a squirrel eat a little sandwich on their bucket list,  I'd help you scratch it off the list :-) Don't say I never did anything for you.   ;-)

I pretty excited about today's victory. Emmett and Gavin took turns while playing Kinect.  This never happens.  Emmett doesn't comprehend the whole concept of sharing,  so this typically doesn't go well.  Emmett took turns tonight with Gavin and they had alot of fun together.  Actually,  now that I think about it,  this is really a double victory.  I say that because Gavin actually did well also. Typically speaking,  Gavin and video games don't mix well.  With that said,  today was a victory that I'm quite excited about.  I'm especially proud of Emmett for taking turns so well.  Way to go guys.  :-)

I think we have all heard this saying before.  I'm going to apply this to my life today in order to explain exactly how my day has gone.  Elliott is quite clearly not feeling well.  Emmett is also obviously not feeling well.  The combination of those two being sick at the same time is extremely volatile.  These guys have been at each others throats all flippin day long.  Gavin on the other hand has been melting down today.  He smashed Elliott's hand a little bit ago because Elliott was reaching for a toy and Gavin didn't want him to.  The toy wasn't Gavin's and hurting someone is unacceptable.  When Gavin was corrected he freaked out, launching into a huge meltdown,  and eventually earning himself oatmeal for dinner.  Life is challenging…

With the 2011 Holiday season quickly approaching, we have many tough decisions that will need to be made. These decisions revolve around participating in Holiday parties, get together's or other large gatherings. As special needs parents, Lizze and I often find ourselves torn between wanting to attend these events and staying home. As many of you can probably attest to, these types of stimulating events can be very difficult on our ASD kids. In our case, my kids love going to these events, however, at least some of them will quickly become over stimulated. If we don't have problems while we're there, which is typically not the case, we will certainly have problems over the next few days. It's really interesting (and maybe interesting is the wrong words choice here) how my…