Tag:History
Big Kid Back to School = Starting Over
This year we started middle school (and high school) and it’s a whole new ball game. I’ve been going to back to school teacher conferences for years, and I can’t remember the last time that one of them scared me. This year I was terrified. As I drove to the middle school, my stomach was …
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Lifting my Gag Order, or Last Year was a Travesty
This is another post that I wrote at the very beginning of the summer. I have edited it significantly for chronological context and ease of reading, but I want my readers to know that my mindset at the time of actually writing this post was months ago. Last year wasn’t a good year. That’s not …
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Here We Go Again
I’m reliving my past. When Yoshi was very young, we spent years searching for an answer (that we never found), Band-Aiding symptoms just to get through, and taking each day as it came. It was agonizing. The not knowing, the racing around, the endless stream of differing opinions. All of that was on top of …
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Letting Go of the Future
I saw something on Facebook recently where a mom of a child with severe autism was talking about the “last time”. Moms with normal (ha!) kids never know when that bedtime snuggle is the last, or it’s the last time you hold your little one in your lap. She was talking about how it’s different …
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So Just What IS Wrong with Your Son?
It’s a question I get a lot and it has a complicated answer. I usually just say autism and leave it at that. If I’m feeling generous I might say high functioning autism or even Aspergers. It’s the easiest answer, it explains why he seems “weird” to you, even if it isn’t the whole answer. …
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I Choose “Not Busy”
It’s become a cute, almost fashionable thing to say that “being busy is a choice.” It’s my new favorite thing to hate. Maybe for some people busy is a choice. I envy those people. If I actually had a choice in the matter I would choose to not be busy. I promise. Ask anyone who …
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What is Normal?
This year has been the year of changes. I largely attribute that to an amazing teacher, an amazing special ed teacher, and an amazing class. The perfect storm of opportunity for him to begin to find his place in this world. People are noticing. My mom comments on it all the time. He is at …
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My Son is Allergic to ALMOST Everything
When Yoshi was a bitty baby, everyone agreed that he was allergic to everything. It was easy. (Ha! Believe me.) As he got older the doctors stopped agreeing on anything and everything was difficult. The battles between the who, what, where, and why are for another day. Eventually, we ended up at Johns Hopkins University Hospital …
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My Son is Allergic to Everything
Food allergies don’t normally count as special needs. I understand this. But Yoshi was an especially tricky customer so I always lump this part of our lives in the with the rest. And even though we knew that it all started as allergies, even though we fought like mad to fit it all into that …
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Should You Medicate?
It’s the question of the age, isn’t it? There are pills to fix just about everything now. Why not autism? (tl;dr There aren’t any pills to fix autism.) Long before I had kids of my own, I was already outspoken about how over medicated our children were. I vowed that I would not medicate my …
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