On an unrelated note. I received in to Dell computers for repair today and got them repaired and returned in only a few hours. Completely re-installed windows and everything. Beat that Geek Squad!!! LT

We had our big meeting today. I think everything went pretty well for the most part. The teachers aide that we have had struggles with still is reluctant to see Gavin as anything other then perfect. But as far as everything else goes it went well. He has lots of sensory issues that we are going to have to figure out how to help him with outside of OT. So I walked away happy with how everything went. LT

In the morning we are meeting with the school. Gavin's main therapist, Dr. Patti is going to be there so we can try to fix some of the issues we are having with the schools approach with Gavin. This has been a long time coming and really needs to go well. My main goal for tomorrow is for the teachers to recognize that Gavin IS NOT your typical aspie.. He is extremely complex and can't be treated the same way. ironically we want them to be tougher on him. Most times parents want the teachers to lighten up but not in our case. We need them to crack the whip so to speak. Gavin has to learn there consequences for his violent outbursts. It's the only real chance he has.…

Vaccine, it seems to be like the grand canyon of the autism community. You find yourself on one side or the other and there is no middle ground. I will start by saying that I don't subscribe to the vaccine theory nor does my wife for that matter. The reason I bring this up is because Gavin's psychiatrist has suggested we consider withholding Emmett John's MMR vaccine. Now before you grab your torch and pitch fork hear me out. He is one of the best in his field. We are very lucky to have him here. What he said was that vaccines as a whole are absolutely a good thing. There is no research to show otherwise. Majority of kids handle vaccines without any problems (which is why you should…

I realize people don't understand what raising a child with autism is like. Maybe they have unrealistic glimpses of what it's like when they spend brief periods of time with them. But I cannot take one more person telling me that "Thank God he isn't deaf, he's only autistic". As well-intentioned as they maybe it shows the amount ignorance there is in our country today. I have had at least 5 people say something to that effect since yesterday.  They truly have no idea. LT

When I started this blog a while back (originally at blogger) I was just using it as a safe place to vent my frustrations. I didn't expect anyone to actually read it let alone follow it. For so long my wife and I felt so alone. There are no places around here for support. The support groups that are close we always felt out-of-place. Gavin isn't nonverbal and sometimes we can't get him to stop talking. How could we go somewhere and complain about him always talking and saying inappropriate things when we were sitting next to parents who would give anything just to hear their child talk. It just felt wrong. However, since starting this blog I have found that there are many families out there just as lost…

Emmett John has been all over the place. All he does is scream. He is still sick a bit but there is no consoling him. He just flings himself backwards with no regard for hurting himself. He has been doing this the past few months or so. This could just be typical 2 year old behavior, right? Lizze and I have been discussing what we need to do now. We are using words like "early intervention" and "nonverbal". We never knew about this stuff with Gavin because he wasn't diagnosed till he was 5years old. And my biggest fear is that he will go down the same road Gavin did. But the reality is that Gavin's bio-dad is bi-polar and a sociopath. I always tell Lizze that the parts of…

Well as far as victories go we never have many. Yesterday though Gavin had a perfect day at school. Even after forgetting his backpack. This almost never happens and it happened on aday we really needed it to. The rest of the day with Gavin was good until after dinner when he really struggled but in fairness to Gavin the emotional level in the house was very high. So all things considered he had a really good day. He went to school this morning with a good attitude and said he was going to have an awesome day. Here's to hoping.. LT