As you are looking at this picture, I don’t want you to ask yourself should our son have been up there on collapsed bleachers. I don’t want you to think about whether or not he can get down safely on his own. Those are, of course, valid questions, but there’s really only one thing I
A happy moment can bloom more quickly than expected from the seeds of hope. In my gut, I felt like Arrowhead was the place we needed to do our crowd work with Tony on March 31st. I noticed as we were pulling in that the Funbox park was up and functional, and I told Andy
A couple of weeks ago, there was a carnival being held on the ballpark field of the elementary school near our house. I think part of optimizing efficacy for what we are trying to help our son achieve is being aware of events occurring in our neighborhood and integrating them into his therapy work. And
Even when all of the scheduled therapy sessions have to be officially canceled for an illness. Tony woke up one day this week with a cough sounding like a seal bark, and as a mom who nursed Hannah through several bouts of croup when she was little, I felt pretty confident that I recognized what
Our son has what is considered to be severe Autism. Some people think that means he can’t love people, or that he doesn’t pick up on things they do and certainly that he doesn’t grasp any of the implications. He has always loved, always bonded with others. And I have never seen him bond with
When considering what will be the most successful way to increase Tony’s ability to tolerate or be successful in certain environments whether it be with crowds or for structured activities, I have to focus on multiple elements that need to be addressed at the same time. One of the things I have noticed in the
This past May, I started creating my own programming for Tony’s community safety and public therapy goals as his habilitative therapist. This was necessary as his ABA team had recommended working on a completely home-based program and public outings with their therapists were limited at their request. Yet, our ongoing need as a family for
Generally, many of the teens who went to my high school came from families that were far better off financially than mine. At some points, I was saving money given to me at Christmas and for my birthday by my grandmother and my Aunt Cile and Uncle Lawson…and I would use it to buy thrift
A couple of weekends ago, on our last public therapy trip with Emily as Tony’s hab therapist, he laughed, smiled, and flapped as we walked towards the door of our local Fry’s. When we first started our public therapy programs, I never would have expected to see him looking happy in that context. The best
About 3 years ago, I had just headed out on a walk with Tony and Hannah when Andy called me. The garage door had broken free from its rails and he was trapped inside the garage. Because I was strength training pretty heavily still at that time, I was physically the strongest person in our
