When I look back on 2019, there's a great deal of pain and loss. Some of this loss was sort of expected, like the deaths of my grandparents. Some of this loss was completely unexpected, like my wife leaving again. Whether expected or not, these losses have made their mark on our lives. I have been struggling with these losses myself, I can't imagine what my kids are experiencing. The last few months have been particularly challenging as the kids and I are trying to adapt to the major changes in our lives. I'm adapting to being a single parent, raising my kids on my own and my kids are adapting to living in a single parent home. Trying to grieve without burdening my kids is not easy. Trying to…

I couldn't fall asleep until 5 AM last night. My brain was not able to shutoff. I've got so much to look forward to but so much to worry about as well. Last night, I happened to be hyper focused on this trip to Florida. The trip is going to be expensive but it's absolutely worth it. The kids desperately need to get away from all the shit in our lives right now. This will really be sort of a working vacation and will open up future opportunities. It's an amazing opportunity to be able to experience the lengths that DoubleTree has gone to, in order to be an Autism friendly, inclusive environment. I just heard back from Give Kids The World and have locked in our volunteer day. That…

I feel pretty good about today. We had some surprises but we handled them in stride. Everything that needed to be done was done. Gavin he got his blood work done and we all got our flushots. The flushots were sorta impromptu but it worked out. We were supposed to get them a couple of weeks ago but we all got sick. You can't get a vaccine when you're sick and so it was cancled. I called to reschedule this afternoon and learned that they were booked until the end of January. We were offered a different location where we could just walk in and get it taken care of. It was all the way on the other side of town but this is important and I wanted to get…

One of the things I wanted to do for the kids this Christmas was something that would help them both gain some additional independence and learn some responsibility at the same time. After careful thought, I arrived at getting each of the kids their own credit card. Actually, it's a debit card and it gives the ability to save their money online and use the debit card to spend it when desired. It's way better than having them carry cash around and I maintain parental controls over the accounts. This is done through a company called GreenLight. They work like regular debit cards but I can control things like what stores they can be used at, how much they can spend etc. They are even taught to give to charity…

We have a full week to recover from Christmas before the boys will be returning to school for the last half of the school year. They will be visiting their mom on Wednesday for a little while and Emmett is going to be having a friend come over to hang out. I'm actually really excited that Emmet is having a friend come over. I know that seems pretty mundane but for an Autism family, it's pretty freaking awesome. Assuming it goes well, I'd to make this a regular thing. As for the rest of the week, I don't really have any plans. I think we're going to stop by my parents house for a bit on New Years Eve and hang out. That's sort of a tradition. It's pretty low-key…

We had a great time visiting family and friends last night. The kids did great and were quite social. I decided to surprise them with a late night movie after our family gathering. We went and saw the new Star Wars movie at 10PM, making it an exceptionally late night. Elliott was the only one who really didn't want to go and pushed to leave after the movie started. That said, he quickly got into it and became glued to the screen for the duration. Emmett, the one who pushed to go in the first place, passed out about 30 minutes in. He woke himself up after his brief nap and enjoyed the rest of the movie. At this point, Elliott was not happy that we were there. Look at…

A lot of you have been asking how I'm personally doing with my upcoming divorce. First of all, I truly appreciate your concern. Secondly, I haven't really been talking about that part of this whole thing and instead remained focused on how the kids are doing because that's the biggest part of my life. When someone asks me how I'm doing, I don't really know how to answer that. The truth is, it's kind of a roller-coaster for me. On most days, I've accepted the necessity of this and while it hurts, I know that I have no choice. At the same time, there is a difference between accepting something on a cognitive level and accepting it emotionally. The absolute truth is that I still struggle emotionally. There are times…

I'm finally feeling more like myself. everyone has been sick for so long, with me being the last to succumb and the last to be better. I'm eating regularly again and even sleeping better. That's aways a positive thing. It's amazing how a decent night's sleep can impact in such a positive away. The boys and I will be attending a family function tonight. We're all pretty excited to get out of the house and hang with family and friends for the evening. The Ohio State game starts at 8PM and we'll probably watch that for a bit as well. We will also spend some time working on the house. We need to play catch-up cause I really dropped the ball when everyone was sick. Emmett is having a friend…