Our son Tony requires 24/7 safety monitoring. He’s 14. He needs frequent reminders not to elope in public spaces and if the front door is open. We have to have a double key lock on our doors so only the key can unlock it because of that. Currently he will listen to those most of
Ariana and Tony at First Church UCC November 8, 2026 and from this past Halloween. All photos by Ariana I struggle sometimes to remember that our little man is a teenager already. But I certainly don’t in moments when I look at pictures of us together, like the one from Halloween, where he’s starting to
This post is long overdue, and I apologize to my family and loved ones for my prolonged silence here. I have to own up to the fact that I made a conscious decision to make sure I was coming from the calmest place I could be at regarding certain things before I undertook this particular
Above, Tony is shown waiting for the school bus. I have picture after picture of him looking worried until it shows up, and then his face just lit up with joy the moment it turned onto our street. Photos by Ariana Recently we have begun trying to increase Tony’s tolerance of working with others when
Before I start serving up the main course for this week’s topic, I’d like to start with a deeply joyful appetizer. For those of you who are unfamiliar with some of the risks for individuals with Sotos Syndrome, approaching 40% of kiddos with this genetic disorder have congenital heart defects. Because he was not presenting
Screenshots from an Instagram Story of an event at ICE protests occurring today in Mesa, Arizona, January 30, 2026 that hasn’t been reported on as of the time I am writing this by other mainstream local Arizona media. The first thing I want to clarify before I do anything else is that I am home
Me, 26 days after my cervical corpectomy this January, and me this morning. The scar has healed so nicely, you can barely tell I had this surgery by looking at me. Reading my writing though? Lol, that is an entirely different story… I spent months not writing here and we’re already back for my second
Perhaps you’ve heard something about RFK Jr’s comments about autism recently, or you listened to it. Or you saw his follow up comments to Fox News that were posted on his Instagram. Hot off of paying our taxes all by myself as I have for more than 2 decades, deciding whether or not to file
To our Arizona State Legislature and Governor Hobbs: I have read that some in our legislature have blamed the governor for mismanagement of DDD funds. And to Representative David Livingston and all of the other esteemed members of our state’s appropriations committee, I would like to propose considering that another explanation is quite possible to
An Open Letter to Governor Hobbs, the Arizona State Legislature, and each of you: In this house, my kiddo has now been without PT and OT for more than a month as the situation I wrote about in my last post remains an active and unresolved matter. So in what would have been an OT
