Life in the Slow Lane

Last week we went to the boys' annual checkup at the pediatrician. You know the appointment, you wait for what feels like an eternity, just to get into the tiny room, be poked at for a minute, then released to pay? Ya. But when I checked out I was given a new kind of 'receipt'. On each was the child's stats from the current visit, along with any other pertinent health happenings from birth to now. And I was faced with this on the top of Alex's paper: PROBLEM LIST. That was the first thing I noticed. Those ding dongs that just want money, see my son as having problems. Nice. But after I got past that title, the list below it hit me. Hard.  Our Autism journey has been nothing short of a miracle as most of you know. I wish I had documented more of our last 7 years. But now is so different than then. Alex is mainstreamed. He doesn't shut up. He's funny as hell. Yes, he struggles with his words sometimes, his anger sometimes, definitely with schoolwo...

READ ME FIRST! Before I even go into this post, please reread my thoughts from last year. It's pretty much what I wanted to say today, but if you missed it, check it on out! Today is Autism Awareness Day. Wild to think that just a handful of years back, there was no one day to show support. Most people weren't even 'aware'! Now sadly, because Autism has covered such a large amount of ground, many people have become more aware, more educated, and more considerate of Autism. Sure, we have a long way to go(I'm going to just assume some people will always be ignorant), but baby steps. The numbers have only gotten worse. Still 1 in 88 children will be diagnosed, but a whopping 1 in 54 will be boys . What's being done? My family and I have raised many thousands of dollars for research over the years, hopefully that is helping to shed new light on the world of Autism. But again, that parent 'feeling', that feeling that something is just 'off...

Can't even tell you the last time I blogged. Sorry about that. Ideas have been swirling in my head, it's just finding the time to type them out! I can't go the whole month without recognizing April as Autism Awareness Month. The saddest thought for me, is that when looking back at a post I wrote last year at this time, statistics showed 1 in 110 children would be diagnosed with Autism. Today? 1 in 88. Double digits people.  Now more than ever, people should be looking for warning signs. Red flags.  Be aware. I'm by no means an expert, by my suggestion is AS EARLY AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE. Of course there's no great research to back my thoughts, and still no known cure for Autism, but that early period of time, when you as a parent have a gut feeling, that is a crucial time. A window that is cracked open a tiny, tiny bit. You as a strong, persistent parent, can stick your fingers through that opening, then your whole hand, then your arm to lift that window. I'm get...

I have been asked more times than I can count over the years, " but how did you know your son has autism? " It's a loaded question, and has a long list of answers. Some are the expected answers from the time of his diagnosis: he doesn't talk, doesn't look anyone in the eye, flaps his hands. But over time you continue to notice other characteristics. One for me was the way he lines up objects. The first time I thought it was a typical behavior, and cute. Then after a few I realized it was more than that. As different as it may be, I always found it to be one of the more interesting behaviors he has and never understood it. But I immediately decided that I would take pictures whenever I could, and always thought about creating a visual diary. Either way, I thought I'd share some of my more favorite pictures. Neat, huh?

Today, April 1st, is the beginning of Autism Awareness Month, and tomorrow is World Autism Day. You may see many buildings or homes with blue lights on over the next few days to commemorate it. I'm not one to over-blog about Autism. I advocate when families need me, or am always a phone call away to answer questions. But it's something I care to keep on my homefront.  But today I need you to read the current statistics, and I'll keep it quick and simple. In 2004, 1 in 166 children were diagnosed with Autism. When my son was diagnosed in 2007, it was 1 in 150. Today, 1 in 110 children are diagnosed with Autism . That's a 600% increase in the last 20 years. 1 in 70 is the rate in boys. There is no known medical detection or cure for Autism. Support.  Educate.  Advocate.

So many games have been purchased, opened, and put on a shelf to collect dust in this house. But not this one. I stumbled onto it at least 3 or 4 years ago, and even today we played for almost an hour with it. I'm not even sure if it's made anymore, but wanted to share. Let me take you back for a second. Back to when my Alex played with nothing. NOTHING. Sure he'd fly his reindeer around and sing, but as far as toys went, we were stumped every birthday and holiday. So part of my being a stay at home mom job was wandering the aisles of Target, ToyRUs, or anywhere else there may be that something he'd play with. This came in a fun package, was reasonably priced, and certainly worth a try! Now don't get me wrong, Alex certainly didn't take to it right away, but from a mom/teacher perspective, it was a great toy. I love toys that have multiple uses. I knew the therapists would love it too. It's meant to be a simple game of Memory. It comes with 10 animals that...

Multiple mouths told me a few years ago that my boy wouldn't talk. They'd say he can't hear, of course he can't talk. Mother's intuition knows best, and this mama knew that they were all wrong. I'm just here today to say Suck It NaySayers! The boy will be 5 this week...talking, laughing, and better yet, starting to read sight words.

April is Autism Awareness Month. I'd love to be able to do a post each day pertaining to Autism, but I think that might be a huge undertaking right now. However, I'll post as often as I can. Today I'm thrilled to see this picture and hear that The Empire State Building will be lit up in blue for World Autism Awareness Day this Friday. Beautiful! There will be many buildings across the world that will be lit in blue as well. With the statistics now showing that approximately 1 in 110 children will be diagnosed with Autism, it's of the utmost importance to educate our communities and help parents see symptoms and signs as early as possible!

The title sounds like something I would say, right? Wrong-o! How many of you know that teaching wasn’t my first choice career in life? Or second choice? Or even third choice? Probably only a few of you I went to college with I guess. It’s the truth, I never, ever saw myself as a teacher until the end of sophomore year of college. Just in case you really need to know, I wanted to be a physical therapist, an architect, and a computer programmer. Then teacher. Anyway, if Mama didn’t say that title sentence, by golly who did? Any guesses? Someone I never thought would even be able to form a lovely, perfect sentence no less something so powerful. Yup, my little Alex. We were just hanging around the house the other day and he blurted it out. I asked him what he just said, as my ears definitely can mistake kid garble, but sure enough he repeated it verbatim. My baby. My baby that spoke late, that hated signing, that got so frustrated when he couldn’t tell us what he wanted or needed. My ba...

I have been living in the world of Autism for a little over 3 years now. I'm a walking autism-wiki, I started a local support group and website, and help tons of families that call for help and resources. Yet I still don't feel some days like I've done enough. Like I've done the most important thing. Educate the people that are not in the Autism world. Educate the ignorant. Our family's Autism bubble has gotten dramatically better over the years. Physical therapists, occupational therapists, speech therapists, behavioral specialists, TSS, psychologists, doctors. Those are the ones that you expect to help your child. But how about the others in our life? Family, friends, the librarians, the hairdressers, the bank tellers, the diner waitresses, the cashiers, the postal workers. Those people have made just as much of an impact on our life here in our small community. They have embraced my child, and helped him to succeed in everyday social settings. This is all a div...

We are now exactly 30 days past Christmas. Is your tree down? Mine is. Decorations gone? Yup, me too. I'm sure you are already looking ahead to spring, as am I, yet I just thought I'd give an update on my Groundhog's Day life stuck in the Christmas season. The holiday still has a very strong presence here. The santa toys are all still out, and everything is still being turned into something Christmasy(ever see tinker toys be used as a sleigh? didn't think so). But Friday, while fighting the good 6:30am-time to go to school fight, little man put on his Santa hat and backpack. No Alex, put on your winter hat . Needless to say, with 2 minutes to spare I caved in, and he wore the hat. We went into town and grabbed breakfast and headed over to school. He got many comments thrown his way, and stares. Seriously grownups, who cares what hat he's wearing? My boy is clean, healthy, and has his head covered on a cold winter morning. Am I judging you for your dirty pants an...

The tree is up. There's 3 ornaments on it so far. It's hard enough to put it up so early no less have to decorate it. But being that our whole life revolves around Christmas all year long, why wait another moment to put the tree up. Heck, I'm shocked it didn't go up earlier! I don't know if all kids with Autism go through 'obsessions', but I know many that do. Sometimes they can last for a few weeks, and sometimes, as in our case, well over a year. It started with something simple I'm sure, maybe a book or a tv show, but it snowballed. Fast. Uncontrollably. At first it was fun, who doesn't love Christmas?!? And, I was ok with it because Alex was actually interested in something. It kept his interest, encouraged pretend play, and made him happy. What more could I ask for? And here we about 14 months later. I just looked at this post and realized just how long it has been. Funny how at that time I really thought it would just fade away. That same...

I don't like to say I've been on hiatus, but rather I'm back from giving myself a long time-out. A much needed time away to decide what I want to be doing with life and where my priorities lie. I'm going to try to be here a bit more often, as I do like reading up on everyone's lives and whereabouts, but I'll probably be doing more reading than posting. If you need me, I'm most likely over at my support site, http://www.autismsupportpa.com/ where I've decided to focus much more of my attention as I should have been for the past few months. I'm also in the process of starting up a forum there too, which I'm hoping can span across Pennsylvania. So if you want to pop over to say hi or show your support we'd love to have you! Hope everyone is enjoying the beautiful fall weather that will be gone way too soon:)

....is today. It's one of those days of the year when I feel a ton of different emotions all at once. So for right now I'll just say my usual. Support. Educate. Advocate.

There's nothing better than when a child discovers something new and amazing. Those small baby book-worthy moments that you want to treasure forever. As a special needs parent, it sometimes takes longer than expected or hoped for to reach some of the tiny goals. The flip side of that is that you appreciate things you never thought important. I'm thrilled to continue to put things in my son's baby book, and he's almost 4. But it's bittersweet. A big hooray that he accomplished something, but a sad sigh that it took so long. Anyway, back to why I'm writing today. Yesterday we had one of those hooray moments. Alex is not one for coloring, so other than at school with the O/T he doesn't get too much 'writing' practice. He found a pencil somewhere in his travels and decided to sit down and draw. He made a few amazing circles, and attempted what he said was the letter A! However, my favorite part of the experience, was the moment when I showed him what an...

Christmas was two days ago. To me it is now officially over. The presents were all put away yesterday, and the ornaments came off the tree last night. A few more things to do around here and it will look like Christmas never even happened. Except, there's one person, with one toy here, that is going to make it very difficult to forget about Santa. Part of who my little Alex is makes him have a new obsession every few weeks or months. He will get 'stuck' on a topic, and then eat, sleep, play, and dream it. Usually they last 4-6 weeks, so we always look ahead and know something different will come soon enough. BUT, in our house, it has been Christmas since mid-October. Somewhere along the way Alex saw something santa/reindeer related and he had his mind set one what he wanted to do for the next few months. Me being the nice mom I am, and being happy that he chose something to actually play with, I scoured the internet for a great santa toy. I was sick of creating sleighs ...