For those who follow my Twitter feed (@DadEnoughBlog), you’ve been watching while I rant and rave again. (Which is why I’m doing a rare Saturday post on the blog.)
Yesterday afternoon, my phone started buzzing on my hip around quarter of five at the office. I don’t have a texting plan, and almost no one texts me, but the fact that it was doing something said that my wife was trying to get my attention.
The Monster’s bus was late again. Continue reading
Sorry for being quiet for the last day or so – reality caught up with me.
Besides being stranded in the house for two days, everything just seemed to pile up at once – work, home and even school reared its ugly head. It just served to remind me that while all parents seem to always be busy, we get it worse with everything else on our plates. Continue reading
We’re into the fifth day of our ‘long’ weekend at this point, once you consider the snow storm that hit us yesterday and kept us at home.
Yesterday, with the snow coming down, the Monster started insisting that he wanted to go outside and play. I said no immediately due to the fact that it was windy and still snowing, but I’d mentioned that I’d be more amenable today, weather permitting. As I also mentioned, we’re out of things for him to be doing inside, save for perhaps his project due on Monday. Continue reading
Schools were cancelled here today due to the predicted weather and for once, the weather predictions panned out. I would not have wanted the Monster to have gone to school in this weather… and I wouldn’t have wanted to have had to go get him if they’d closed early.
There is, however, a different problem – a lack of other things to do. Continue reading
Last week, the Monster’s folder appeared from school with a form to be filled out regarding a book report.
As part of Common Core, the curriculum is changing to include a weekly book report of a sort, testing his ability to identify various things in a book. Continue reading
I think, for a lot of us parents with children with Autism, there’s this fantasy of a “magic treatment”. Something that we can give our child – if not a wand that we could just wave over them – and take away the worst of their challenges, and our challenges for coping with their behaviors, and make things as close to normal as possible without ridding them of their personalities…
On the other hand, there are the parents who would prefer not to tinker, for the concern that the other side of it isn’t all that rosy. That treatments and medications have all those side-effects, some of which might not be known for years, that might rob their child of what makes them unique.
Continue reading
I think the thing we miss out most on, being a family with a child who has Autism, is going to the movies.
Certainly, AMC goes a long way in having those sensory-friendly screenings that make it possible for us to occasionally catch a film, in theory. (There are a lot of days where it just doesn’t work out, when we’re hoping to go.) And we could hire a sitter so the wife and I could catch a film, but… we’ve still not done that any time recently. Continue reading
After the doctor’s office yesterday, since the Monster’s school is closer to my office (and KKI is around the corner from our house), I took him to school myself.
Ordinarily, this wouldn’t be that huge of a deal, since… well, it’s school. And yes, he’s accustomed to being taken on the bus rather than having a parent drop him off, but that, to me, wasn’t that big of a chance.
Except for the fact that the only time he, I and school all cross paths is when I’m picking him up on Thursdays. Continue reading
Today was the Monster’s check-up with the developmental pediatrician. We have these checkups about every nine months or so, a touch-base to decide if there’s things we need to be doing to try to get him caught back up, and to watch for any places where we might have been less than diligent about doing what’s best for his development.
But first, there’s always the simple physical. Continue reading
After the debacle that was the LISS funding process this year, the state of Maryland conducted a survey to talk about how the program could be improved (shy of, say, giving LISS more money).
For those readers who don’t remember – LISS, or Low Intensity Support Services, is the program that gives funding to individuals coping with disabilities to cover things that are not covered by insurance. For us, this can include the Monster’s summer camp, or his adaptive gymnastics at Rebounders, or music therapy, or the like. Continue reading