To help our son with his combination of sensory differences, functional deficits, and disability-related needs acclimate to an environment such as a public school is more complicated than just showing up and gradually increasing his time when he shows he’s ready for that. There are so many moving pieces to think about. How complicated is
When I described our first meeting with J.N. a couple of weeks ago, I kept the cover firmly closed on the subject of my own self-care. This is I think an incredibly important subject when it comes to families of individuals with extensive needs, but experiences can vary widely and there are the rights and
Several months ago, Tony, the Fabulous Miss Whitney, and I had just strolled a few feet into our local Costco. I was wearing an Autism shirt I had recently purchased from a vendor on Etsy. A woman we were passing looked up, read my shirt, and fired off the following: “Lucky. I can’t even get
In November of 2017, our family took a long-planned trip to Disneyland. That trip, and the extensive work we did to help Tony prepare for it, is mostly a topic of a future post. I suspected (translation: totally knew it) we could be in for a few challenging moments given his sensory differences. However, I
Every year since Andy and I married, the evening of our Thanksgiving celebration we would bring out the boxes of artificial tree and holiday ornaments to unpack Christmas. Like many families, we decorated our winter holiday times with traditions that only made a guest appearance one month out of each year. As the severity of
This tale involves things that can haunt a person without being supernatural. Of course, I would never want to scare another parent whose feet are freshly placed upon the path of parenting a kiddo with significant disabilities. But I cannot change that I have been witness to an emotional crime scene, a missing person’s report,
