Parenting Archives - Page 42 of 720

I pushed the limits of my comfort level a bit but I think we did good

Elliott's birthday was largely successful. I think it was anyway. After the boys finished class for the day, I got them over to see Lizze and we hung out in the driveway for about twenty minutes. Everyone was double masked and socially distanced. The boys were able to get hugs from their mom that's always a big thing for them. Like I said yesterday, this wasn't ideal and I felt a little uncomfortable but I also think we were both safe and smart about it. Sometimes, the emotional wellbeing of the kids involves limited and calculated risk. I ordered pizza prior to our arrival and timed it such that we would pick it up on the way home. It kept us on a schedule and it's what Elliott wanted for…

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March 5, 2021

Not Sleeping by Alan Winnikoff

Guest Blog Post for The Autism Dad By Alan Winnikoff Author of the novel “Not Sleeping” I’ve often heard autism parents quote a particular statistic– 70% of special needs couples break up. I’ve never been able to verify this – it might be more urban legend than reality. After all, on the flip side, I know plenty of special needs couples who are hanging together, finding a way to make their relationship work, keeping their connection going, in spite of the pressures. Still, it’s no secret that raising an autistic child puts tremendous strain on a marriage. if this 70% number did turn out to be accurate, would it really be all that surprising? We are genetically programmed – it’s in our DNA – to push ourselves to exhaustion during…

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March 4, 2021

Link / My thoughts / Reviews

AirMax8L Air Purifier by Okaysou (REVIEW)

Okaysou sent me one of their AirMax8L Air Purifier to test out and judge for myself how they work. It includes two filters, washable pre-filter, removes 99.97% of air pollutants like dust, smoke, pollen, pet dander, hair, and even odors from rooms up to 800 square feet. I was excited to give this a try because we live in a house that's over a century old. There's no end to the dust in a house this old. I've been looking at air purifier for mold for awhile, especially since we've been in lockdown. I set this up in our dining room and let it run for the last month. I largely forgot about it because it was tucked away in the corner. After using this for a solid month, I…

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March 3, 2021

My thoughts

It can be hard to not drown in all the negativity

I've been feeling a little overwhelmed this week. Elliott is having sleep problems and he's in full on stubborn teenage mode. That means I can't get a great deal of cooperation from him in regards to getting his sleep cycle reset. He's stressed out and probably a bit depressed. I think that's completely understandable but we need to right this ship because it interferes with school and it's simply not healthy. That was the focus of therapy tonight. Hopefully, we can begin getting him back on track. I've opted to skip this week's podcast release because I have to much work that needs to get done and production is very time consuming. I could cramm everything in but that would increase my stress levels and I'm trying to be kind…

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March 2, 2021

My thoughts / Reviews

The SideTrak Slide is the second display I didn’t know I needed (REVIEW)

I've been a work from home Dad for the better part of a decade. Lately, most of my work is centered around the blog and the podcast. As I've mentioned many times before, I write almost exclusively from my mobile device and only use my laptop for recording and producing my podcast. It's this angle that I'm going to approach this review. Not too long ago, SideTrak sent me their Slide Portable Monitor to try out and share my thoughts on. Essentially what this is - is a 12.5 inch, full HD secondary display, with a matte finish - for a laptop. It attaches magnetically and is easily removable when desired. My current laptop happens to be 13 inches so this was sized perfectly, although it would work with larger…

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March 2, 2021

My thoughts

Let’s get caught up

The boys and I have had a pretty good couple of days. We had some frustrating moments and Gavin is struggling a bit, especially in the problem solving department. It's getting to be frustrating for me because the need to address these struggles he's having is becoming more and more important. With Gavin wanting to move out, we need work on these things so he can better interact with whomever he's living with. As frustrating as those moments have been, they haven't defined out week. The back half of the week was a bit more eventful than we had planned for. We had a surprise immunology appointment for Gavin. His doctor wanted to do a televisit before refilling some of his meds. It was very last minute but I was…

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February 28, 2021

My thoughts

I’ve been feeling overwhelmed today

I'm finding myself feeling a bit overwhelmed today. I'm relieved that Gavin is less vulnerable to COVID because that's been a big worry for a long time. I'm relieved that the boys are doing better in school because remote learning has been a challenge. I'm also relieved that I won the power struggle with the stupid dog over going potty outside. Work has been incredibly slow this month, meaning March is going to be a leaner month and will likely present some challenges. That could literally change at any time though because I pick up new client all the time, some big and some small. I'm working on a few longer term projects at the moment and invoicing is still a couple weeks out. I've spent the last few days…

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February 23, 2021

My thoughts

How I’m doing after increasing my antidepressant

I mentioned last week that I would be speaking to my doctor about bumping up my antidepressant. After discussing things, we decided to double my current dose. I've been on 20mg/day of Prozac and I'm now on 40mg/day. I think I'm on day four or five of the new dose and there really isn't any news to report. It's likely to be a few weeks before I see any changes, if I'm going to see any changes. It may be a little faster because I've already been on Prozac for a couple of years. Either way, I feel good about the change. Outside of that, I need to lower my triglycerides a bit and continue losing weight. I'm in good health and I will rerun my labs in six months…

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February 22, 2021