Where’s the volume control?

I love my family. I know things are challenging and I can find myself overwhelmed and frustrated but I truly adore my family. Aside from improving our quality of life and safety, I wouldn't change my life for anything in the world. I don't know why I always feel compelled to say that prior to discussing something that I find frustrating but I do. Anyway, having said that, it was rough day. Lizze is in a great deal of pain and her head was pretty much left her incapacitated. On Tuesday, I gave her the second injection of Aimovig, her new migraine preventative. While it hasn't helped yet and we don't expect it to for a three or four months, for a few days after the injection, her migraine gets…

4 Comments

This was expected

I went to bed last night, knowing that this would be a possibility and after not sleeping well at all, I was quite grateful when the early morning call came to confirm it was a snowday. We got a snow/ice storm late last night and early this morning. It was apparently bad enough to cause the schools to shut down. I was able to go back to sleep for a little while and wake up feeling a little more rested. We have Dr. Pattie tonight and I have a conference call in a bit in regards to someone wanting to be interviewed on the podcast. While we're on that subject, I'm actually getting requests from people and/or organizations that want to come on and talk about what they're doing for…

0 Comments

Can anyone relate?

Sometimes life is so overwhelming and being an Autism parent is the least stressful part of it. I'm wondering if anyone can relate to how I'm feeling right now?

5 Comments

We could all use the break

We're finally getting back into our routine after last week and the long weekend. It's been fun for the boys but it's also been chaos for them because they thrive in their routine, as do most Autistic people. The rest of the week is going to be a sorta slow. We have all of our normal weekly appointments plus one out of town trip for Gavin. He needs to get to Akron Children's Hospital to see his gastro. It's mostly a follow-up but we would be getting him in anyway because he's having some digestive related issues. Outside of that, it's going be a bit less chaotic than last week and that's a good thing. My focus for this week is getting Friday's podcast episode done, walking and continuing my…

1 Comment

Things are not going so well right now

I'm having a rough go at this weekend. It's the tail end of a long-ass week and I'm spent. The E's are doing pretty good right now and Emmett even finished his planet report which he's been incredibly stressed out over. Elliott has been relatively mellow and that's pretty awesome for him. On the other hand, Lizze and I have been struggling with Mr. Gavin today. We've been struggling with him for the entire weekend to be completely honest. Gavin has been on an endless, nonstop mission to narrate every single aspect of his life, at least that's how it feels. That's a nice way of saying, he will not stop talking. He just keeps going and going and going. As far as talking goes, he's like the goddamn Energizer…

2 Comments

Why it’s okay to feel frustrated with your #Autistic or #SpecialNeeds child

One of the things that are difficult in my life as a special needs Dad is coming to terms with my own humanity. What I mean by that is accepting my limitations as a parent, embracing my emotions and not beating myself up for getting frustrated with my kids. There are a plethora of reasons that being human makes Autism and Special Needs parenting more difficult. For the purposes of this post, I want to talk briefly about frustration. There's this unspoken belief that simply because a child is Autistic, has Special Needs or maybe even fragile health, that as a parent, we aren't ever allowed to be frustrated with them. I don't know who started this or why it's such a popular belief but this needs to change because…

1 Comment

Quick update

Gavin is having an off day. As I type that, I'm asking my how I even know he's having an off day because most of his days are kinda bizarre. I don't know if that makes sense. Anyway, he just seems off today. I'm not super worried about it but I will be keeping an eye on him. It's 1 PM and I've only seen him once today. He's running missions today and we just may not see him very much. That's sort of the nature when it comes to how his life is impacted by Schizophrenia. I'm still recovering from the long week but I fully intend to go walking in a little bit. It's important that I keep making progress because I need to continue raising my good…

0 Comments

This week has taken its toll

It's been a very long week and I'm spent. The good news is that Lizze's pain has been cut in half, which is an enormous weight off her shoulders. It's far from perfect because the amount of pain she's still in would likely incapacitate most people, but it's significant progress. This is a big relief for us as a family and we're incredibly grateful. I'm just burnt out right now. Traffic was unbelievable this week. It took twice as long to get back and forth. Sometimes it took even more than that. There were days where it took hours longer than it normally would. It took us two and a half hours to get home yesterday because of a very serious car wreck that had traffic backed up forever. I…

3 Comments