Categories Autism Family Life

Overstimulated

I’ve written before about how overstimulating certain scenarios and situations can be for Sawyer. Sporting events, especially, can be triggering for him because of all the sights, sounds, and smells he experiences when we’re at a game; basketball games are especially hard for him because of the echo in a gymnasium. This weekend, we went…

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Categories Autism Family Life

Mourning A Life

It’s been a few weeks since I’ve written; I’m sorry. After losing my job, I took some time to find a new job (thank God!!)  and take advantage of my “extended vacation” to spend time with the kids and my family. My nephew’s baseball team has been kicking ass this year, and we’ve been spending…

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Categories Autism Family Life

Sportsmanship Is A Struggle

Yesterday, Sawyer participated in his second Special Olympics. Last year, when my sister asked me if I was interested in letting Sawyer compete, I was nervous. You see, Sawyer is not always the best sport… Autistic people have trouble processing and expressing emotions.  Where a neurotypical person learns how to express emotion through body movements,…

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Categories Autism Resources

IEP Time

It’s time once again to go over Sawyer’s IEP and plan for the following year with Sawyer’s teachers; next week I’ll go discuss what changes we’ll need to make for Sawyer as he enters 5th grade. An IEP is an Individualized Education Program. Before I had Sawyer, I had heard of kids having an IEP,…

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Categories Autism Family Life

10 Years

This past weekend, we celebrated Sawyer’s 10th birthday. We had a small group of mostly family come together to bowl and play games, and then we finished the day with a trip to the movies to see “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” (which was super cute!). Sawyer had an awesome day, with lots of fun…

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Categories Autism Family Life

A Birthday with Autism

Sawyer’s birthday is coming up; he turns 10 this year and officially enters the double digits! He is super excited, and can’t wait for his birthday party.  Birthday celebrations look a lot different than the typical kids’ birthday party for a lot of autism families. Sawyer has only had two “official” birthday parties in his…

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Categories Autism

World Autism Day

This was originally supposed to be published on April 2, but for some reason my post scheduler didn’t push the post out. :\ April is National Autism Awareness Month, and April 2nd is World Autism Day! There is a saying in the autism community that if you’ve met one person with autism, you’ve met one…

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Categories Autism Resources

Help Them Thrive: Training Teachers to Spot Autism

When my girls started school, I didn’t have a lot of fears about it. Both Emily and Caitlyn were social butterflies who had shown me that they would thrive and flourish in a school environment, and I was mostly worried about things like making sure they had the “cool” backpacks, lunchboxes, and clothes; I didn’t…

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Categories Autism Family Life

Milestones

Yesterday, Sawyer did something he’s never done before- he went into the grocery store and bought a soda all by himself. We live in a very small town, where everyone pretty much knows everybody else. We have one grocery store, and it’s fairly small, so when Sawyer asked if he could go in and get…

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Categories Autism Family Life

Three Little Birds

“The siblings of special needs children are quite special. Absolutely accepting and totally loving, from birth, someone who is different mentally, and has a different way of seeing the world, is a wonderful trait.”- Sally Phillips I am often struck with gratitude for the three amazing children God has given me. Each one of them…

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