I’ve been very quiet of late, I’m aware.
All of us have periods where we’re single parenting. There was the several days where my wife went to Vegas with her sister, and I disappear for a few days at a time here and there to go to my competitions… but this is the first time that I’m “in charge” while she’s actually still physically present, which makes things interesting. Continue reading
One of the things that occurred to me is that there’s really no one good, central resource for a list of events that are coming up for parents of children with special needs. (Every group seems to have a superset of their events and a few other groups, but… not all in one place) So I’m going to try to remember to post something at least once a month with what I know of, and… well, if any of my readership knows of additional events, please feel free to let me know and I’ll add them.
And, because not everything revolves around our children with special needs, I’ll post general-interest parenting things here too, if I’m attending (with or without the kids). Continue reading
Every so often, there’s a boys’ day around here.
Long-time readers are aware that I’ve taken a lot of “me” time this year – I’ve been putting some real effort behind another passion of mine (curling) and taking time to pursue it. This has had me gone for a couple of weekends, leaving the burden on her to watch the kids, and so turnabout’s fair play. And while she won’t take a weekend to herself, the least I can do is take the kids for periods of time on the weekend to give her a breather. Continue reading
We frequently hear about how children with Autism are excluded from parties – I’ve written about the topic before, unapologetically. There’s also been quite a bit about how kids with Autism tend to be marginalized by not having a lot of folks come to their parties…
But one good thing in the world is family. You can have hundreds of folks out there who aren’t going to include your child, but your family will always, always include your kids, no matter what.
This weekend was my nephew Z’s birthday party… and I’ll admit that I’d been somewhat nervous about the idea of taking the Monster to the party. Continue reading
So, as I mentioned on my tweet feed, I’m on a business trip this week. I don’t travel often for work – perhaps two or three times a year – and it’s as disruptive as you can imagine.
As I write this, I’m looking out my hotel window at La Vista, Nebraska… and the mostly empty terrain around my hotel. (Apparently there was supposed to be a shopping district put in here, but it fell through.) I’d be out doing something else, but I’m more than a little tired due to the hour I had to get up so I could get here, so I’ll be going to bed shortly to try to get myself reset for tomorrow. Continue reading
I was never really big on having pets when I was growing up. Sure, I had a hamster and a couple of guinea pigs, but nothing that was really a full-out, roaming around the house pet. A few months after I moved to Texas, after college, I ended up having a kitten foisted on me – the poor sucker was found sitting on the trunk of my car, and I was asked if I could hold him till the no-kill shelter had a spot in a few weeks. Yeah… he never quite made it to the shelter.
Samson’s seventeen now, and he’s not doing so hot. Continue reading
We’re getting into holiday mode again.
Setting aside that Hanukah starts tomorrow night, there’s also Thanksgiving on Thursday (supposedly) and the long weekend that follows. And, as part of that weekend, we’re going to be seeing all the grandparents for a change. Continue reading
Yesterday was family photo day.
Now, setting aside that I myself don’t like being photographed, it’s been a while since we’ve done the family photo thing, so when the wife found a deal through one of those “deal of the day” sites, I relented. Continue reading
Because the Monster is a child with Autism, we end up being in a number of research studies.
Some of these studies involve the Monster – they include new tests to see just how his Autism affects him, and tracking to see what he does and doesn’t pick up (and how) in an intellectual sense. Continue reading
Normal families have Super Bowl parties.
We’re more fortunate than a lot of families that are dealing with an ASD, in that the Monster really is not sensory adverse. We’ve taken him to plenty of places – amusement parks, fireworks displays, bowling alleys and the like – where other children with Autism have trouble coping with all of the sensory overload. Continue reading