Zach's Signature

Zach's signature - no facilitation required other than a verbal prompt of "write your name".

So stinking excited.

New Milestone

I have some news to report - not sure how to interpret it - cautiously optimistic about if we will see it again, however, tonight for the first time ever, Zach said two sentences spontaneously. Simple - but as we were approaching bedtime, and we were all huddled in his sister's room, he said "It's bedtime. Time to go 'night 'night." he continued to say "night night" as he crawled under the sheets in his sister's bed. Steve was there to witness it.

Zach's articulation is pretty warbled at times. And other times it is quite clear. These last two weeks we have heard him be able to say multi-syllabic words when prompted - something we had not seen in a very long time. But all in all, we have approached a point where we feel that nearly 4 years of trying, 7 speech language therapists/pathologists efforts, 6 special ed teachers, 4200 hours of 1:1 - things are not looking probable.

This is such a hard hard thing. I know many of you are thinking we should be overjoyed by this, but it is so easy to get burned by putting ourselves in a place of expectations. Instead, experience has taught us to just file this in the appropriate place and keep on going; business as usual. That means school, researching, private instruction and therapy, doctors visits, schedules, rituals, purposeful play, data, conferences, classes, support groups, agencies - push push push. The marathon continues.

It does help give a little pep in the step for today. But tomorrow is another day. And we don't know if we shall pass this way again. But if not, it won't be for the lack of trying.

I sit here in tears. And I am ashamed because they are not of joy. They are of my shame. I love him oh so much. I work as an advocate for families - some of whom have children who are non-verbal. As an advocate, I try to emphasize that a child is important, deserves respect and love, regardless of their abilities or lack thereof. But the truth is that I am desperate for Zach to talk. And he may never. And I know this. And I push this desire to have him communicate with me down to a place so that I can deal with the rest of life. But it rears its head. Where is the acceptance? Shouldn't I just be content with the beautiful child he is? Why do I ache? Why do I suck at this? I feel as though for my faults and my humanity, I am being teased.

I connect with Zach every day. We make eye contact, he asks for tickles or kisses. He smiles. I grab him playfully and he giggles. He cuddles with me. Tonight he put two puzzles together with me, and then refused when I asked him to do another, laughing as he ran away to jump on his bed. The teachers like to use the phrase "self directed". Sometimes I think that is just a polite way of saying "pain in the azz". What would it feel like for Zach to take me by the hand, but for once, not request a drink or a chip, but to share something with me like a favorite toy or an idea?

I sometimes joke that Zach doesn't talk because he is smarter than the rest of us. I say this, and to some extent I mean it. I have always been pretty good at choosing words and phrases, and ultimately getting my point across. My big mouth has also brought me difficulties in my life. Meanwhile, my uber quiet husband manages to stay out of the troubles I get myself into. I have always made note that Steve is labelled "the nice one."

As for tonight, who knows what it was. I am thankful that I was there to hear it. But I stake no claims other than it happened. The mystery continues.

Girl Scout Cookies for Sale!!!

Sophia is making a request...
She is selling Girl Scout cookies - if you would like to place an order - please send an email and tell me how many of which type you would like. We are willing to ship - but have to pay costs to do so out of pocket - so please consider that when purchasing.

Allergies/Intolerances
If you need nutritional and allergen information about the cookies that can be found here.

One Donation Two Causes
Also - if you don't want the cookies - but want to donate anyhow, we are taking cookie orders and delivering them to a local food bank for distribution - help two causes at once! Please make note when ordering.

Merry Christmas! Get me some ZipFizz!

Christmas Cards went out late. Oh yeah, and the card was actually the card from last year that never got sent. Yup. We had a theme for this year: No Stress. Or at least diminished stress. Of course, that was not the reality in the least. But the holiday was not to blame.

After several weeks of waiting for Zach's extended school year to begin, we had to push a little harder for it to happen. For those not into the special ed terms - I'll give you my version as it applies to our situation: Zach goes to a typical classroom kindergarten where it is only half day and has his own special ed teacher and TA to support him. Since Zach receives 9 1/2 hour sessions a week of therapy (that includes speech, occupational and physical therapy) , and for the fact that these sessions are "pull outs" meaning he receives this services outside the classroom, we had agreed that at least a few times a week, these sessions would be appended to his day, so after school, they would run for instance a speech therapy session as opposed to taking him out of class to do it. We were told it would take 3 to 4 weeks to get schedules settled.

About one month into the school year, I had heard nothing from the school about extended day. So I began to inquire - schedules were still be settled, and the new PT was just hired. More time passed, and some phone messages were left, one of which was from the PT who said he would run one extended day session. More time elapsed and it still hadn't happened.

I went to Zach's special education teacher and asked her for his therapy schedule and was told she didn't know what it was. I then asked her to look into what was going on with the extended day. A week and a half passed - no comment. A few more days pass - and it was parent teacher conferences. The special ed teacher said extended day was being worked on.

About a week before Thanksgiving I went to the principal in person to discuss. After Thanksgiving I received a message saying they could get one session a week as extended day. She told me that she had met with Zach's team who discussed that his being pulled out constantly from the classroom would not impact him academically.

I told the principal that this was not what we had agreed to at the CSE meeting - and that I would be pulling out the recording that we made. She seemed to be indifferent that I had them digitally recorded, agreeing and the special education director even suggesting the extended day in the first place. An email was then sent to the special education director - a partial transcript of the meeting sent and we told them where on the recording to listen. The special education director said she would look into it.

Steve left his business trip early and when he got back in town, he made a B-line straight to the superintendent's office where he requested an in person meeting. An hour after Steve made that trip, we received an email from the special education director stating they were working on it and that extended day would start the following week.

We were also told that next time, we should speak up sooner.

There is more to this story and I will share it in the next post. Now perhaps my not tapping the keys has some explanation for you all.

The fall is a particularly difficult time for me, I have SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) where the change of weather and diminished natural light levels leave me very lethargic, plus the demands of the holidays, and the fact that several of my most unhappy events in my life happened during this time of the year (Dad had his heart attack a few days before Christmas, Buddy died a few days before Christmas, my sexual assault took place at this time of the year, we received Zach's diagnosis at this time of the year) leave me with little desire to be chipper to say the least.

Worrying about my kids just adds to the stuff. But I want them to have the joy that children should be able to have at the holidays. So, I do my best to figure out what it takes for me to get my butt out of bed in the morning and keep myself moving through the day. Coffee no longer makes the cut. Even 4 cups worth, although it does make my hands do this creepy shaking thing that had me getting nervous about Parkinson's. Exercise has always helped - but I have had a knee issue, so I have laid low on the running. But Pilates on Monday nights with my sister have been helpful, although one day a week of exercise only does so much. I have also tried to get more rest. LOL Okay - I just stopped laughing. Yeah - well, a dog who eats socks and then hurls and a child who sleep seems to be optional as a life sustaining requirement don't make for the best contributors to positive sleeping experiences for Momma and Daddy.

For this reason, I am really grateful to BJs and the sample lady who upon walking down the aisle with my cord of toilet paper and barrel of laundry detergent offered me a drink of some pink fizzy stuff. She made me listen to a 90 second blurb before I received my bottle, but alas, there it was a water bottle that had this miracle powder added to it that when combined formed a cotton candy colored beverage. And it tasted OK. And hoo haa - I was awake, and calm, and not jittery.

Since this moment in time, I have introduced the colorful fizzy making substance to my dear husband who has also embraced its' charms. ZipFizz is our current wonder drug for getting us through these times. B12, caffeine and 10 calories.

WARNING: TMI ALERT - DISCUSSING SICK CHILDREN ***********************
Steve was away a week, and of course my children decide this is when it is most important to get the stomach bug. While Steve wheeled and dealed (LOL) his way at a convention - I was joyously cleaning bodily fluids of all types from my germ laden home. My favorite part of the story is that we now have Lucky. And being that she is a large dog, we have to keep the toilet covers down so as to avoid her lapping up the succulent waters of the porcelain bowl. (Blek!)

What I never felt the need to discuss was to Sophia, how when she got sick at 2:36 in the morning (and kids always seem to do this in the middle of the night, don't they?) that when she ran into the bathroom to take care of business that despite her aim at the bowl, if you don't lift the cover up, well, we all know about vector forces from high school physics, right? Yup. Splashback. It was totally disgusting, only to be made worse that while I was trying to soothe my poor sick daughter, my large young pup came in and considered this dinner time. If you think I didn't hurl a sentiment or two at my husband during this time, then you just don't know me very well. NOTE: No children were exposed to profanities were launched during this tirade in fr
at this time, just lots of "oh... you owe me...."

The bug was fairly short lived (thank the Lord!) and minus missing a few days at school, readily remedied with time and a good washing machine.

END OF TMI STORY********************************************************

During Steve's departure, with sick children and crazed puppy underfoot, I managed to get all the Christmas decorations up myself - with a little help from my nephew. Christmas is a hard time for Steve - so I wanted to get as much done with him out of the house as possible.

I claimed victory over the prelit Christmas tree (5 strands of lights were out) , Grandpa's nativity set was repainted and setup up, and all the other accoutrements set in place. I was so proud of myself! Certainly getting setup for Christmas would help put us in the spirit - and indeed I think it helped.

We didn't make all the cookies, but we did make 300 pierogies with a friend. Christmas cards were sent out on Christmas Eve - oh yeah - and as I previously mentioned, they actually contained the Christmas Cards from the previous year that were never sent. Presents were mostly purchased online. Things were far from perfect, but things were great. No yelling. No frantic anything. Just letting the chips fall where they may.

Our Christmas Miracle came in the most interesting of places. Originally I thought I would write about the fact that at Steve's company Christmas party, I ran into an old college chum who I found out also has a son with autism. During our discussion his wife shared the name of a therapist that they think could be very helpful to Zach. Zach's speech has deteriorated once again. He is saying less, but more pronounced is his lack of pronunciation. His lack of communication skills has led me to start researching and consulting with professionals on alternative and augmentative communication technologies for him. With Zach unable to request his wants and discuss his needs, and the fact that at age 5 we have given therapies nearly 4 years to do this, we have begun to lose a little hope that he will communicate verbally. Sometimes I wonder if he is over in some other place and not wanting to communicate his needs, likes, dislikes. Should I just let him be?

So the other day, I sat reading a book to Zach while he cuddled up with me. He doesn't always appear as the most attentive child during these times, but after reading stories of children who seemed in another world later recounting in detail things from their pre-communication days, I keep it up. I often wonder why I write the things I do in this blog. Quite often it really is just a stream of consciousness. Well, I, totally unaware, began to bite my nails as I have reported in this blog is one of my most disgusting habits. Yes, stress levels are so high that reading a book brings me to this. Anyhow, Zach reached over and pushed my hand from my mouth. I was surprised to say the least, but I wasn't sure if it was a purposeful gesture or not. So I once again pretended to bite my nails, and lo' and behold, the kid grabbed my hand and put it in my lap. I was shocked. This is not some uncaring, unaware kid on my hands.

While I am not sure what exactly this means, it did help add some of that fuel to help me get over some of my dejected feelings about the difficulties with his school situation.Again, to many this might not seem significant, and to be honest, I am not exactly sure how to interpret this. Perhaps the only conclusion I have made from this, and likely the most significant, is that we need to keep those expectations high and we need to keep on working. My boy is growing, learning, and developing. And he does communicate some things.

Keeping our hopes high in Camillus...

Tricks and Treats

Things are going fairly well in our household lately. Zach and Sophie went trick-or-treating together and it was a cold, yet precipitation free evening with a nice moon. We had a lot of fun. I was thrilled to have such a great evening with my family. Everyone had so much fun.

Zach was once again Thomas - OK OK - I know- isn't this the second or third year for that? Yes. It is such a convenient costume ( can be worn over bulky winter coats if needed in our tropical Syracuse climate) and he still loves Thomas. Plus - having worn it before, I think he sort of gets the point since we aren't able to verbally explain to him what Halloween is.

Steve took the kids off to the adjacent neighbors houses. Then he decided to pass out candy while our a family friend and Sophie took off in one direction and Zach and I went off in the other. He had a blast! He was so much fun. He rang the doorbells (too many times if I didn't pay attention - oops!) and when prompted said trick-or-treat. When people put the candy low for him to grab his own - he took it and dropped it in his bag. We did 0.7 miles - both sides! We at some point ran into Sophie and a friend and finished up with them. She was so darned cute even though her wig on her costume kept falling off her head. I think she really loved being able to go out with her brother.

Now this might not sound like anything significant to a lot of you, it sounds just like a typical Halloween, right? That is what makes it so significant to us. Whenever we don't have to think too much about what we have to do, that makes life so much easier for us. Unlike some of Zach's other developments, what I appreciated about this is that it was effortless, there was no preparation beyond what I did for Sophia - OK your right, even less preparation since I punted on the costume for him. :)

Pictures you ask? Ahhh errr.... yeah, well like I said, "no thinking".

Zach has recently begun chewing on the collars of his shirts and the cuffs of his sleeves. In behavioral terms, we have put this on "extinction". This means, for the meantime, that we ignore it and see what happens. I am wondering if his 6 year molars are pushing in and causing him to do this since he never did this before. Now as for Sophia - she is like me - likes to chew on things ALL the time. My chronic nail biting is a huge embarrassment for me - and she has a lighter version of it that started roughly 2 years ago. It makes me so sad that she might have learned this from me.

I had an adult in my life that was also a finger nail biter. I can recall trying to discuss this with her and she wouldn't talk about it. I remember going to my doctor and asking for help - to which he responded that out of all the bad habits to have - this one was benign comparatively. He went on to explain that if I would force myself into quitting I would likely take on a new behavior to replace it - and something with more consequences, like eating or smoking.

I have to tell you folks, knowing how my nail biting is worse than ever and done primarily at home, I have been wondering if I have been to blame for my kids oral fixations - a combination of genes and modelling. But then I recall the time when I began to chew my nails. I was on my way to a violin lesson, and looked down to see slightly long nails - nothing excessive for the normal kid - but for a violin player too much. My violin teacher was known to pull out the nail clippers right during lessons, and I can recall a snip that was a little to close to the quick. So I can recall taking care of business en route to the lesson. It's funny that I realize that might have been the beginning of the habit. Nervousness was paired with nail biting.

Yes, I over think things. All the time. I waste time doing it.

Sophie is busy this fall and I am almost happy that soccer is over for now. Whew! Sophie is enjoying all her activities - Girl Scouts, ballet, French, religious education. We are in preparation for her first penance. Unfortunately, our parish priest is very ill, and won't be able to attend the actual service. The instruction for first penance has been parent instructed which means that I have procrastinated and onyl begun working on it this past week when she is due to make her first penance December 5th.

I have discussed my struggles with faith before - but know in my heart that I want to give Sophia the sense of safety that I had from growing up within the Church. Although during these past few years especially after a priest who we had begun to befriend left the area, I have felt sort of deserted by our Church community. Having gone to them for help, we ended up being requested to set up the help ourselves for the church. I studied disability ministry a bit and realized that I could not afford to overextend myself and further. I was left feeling bitter. Had it not been for reading other mothers' blogs who had the same thing happen - I would have taken it more personally. I chalked it up once again to those not affected not "getting it".

Reading the materials for this sacrament has been very emotional for me. I feel like I have always had a very deep belief in a lot of the teachings of the Church and I struggle with the fact that I always felt that others don't take the teachings as serious as I did. This sacrament has always left me a little dumbfounded though - the emphasis on apologizing to those you hurt was never emphasized strongly enough in my opinion. Either way - I am not sure if I am connecting with God or just my core beliefs, but this journey Sophia is travelling has certainly brought up a lot of emotions. I always seem to take things more seriously - could this more "black and white" view of things be one of those genetic things that I passed on to my kids?

Thinking I was volunteering to pass out donuts, I signed up to work at Sophie's Penance Retreat. I showed up to find out I would actually be teaching a small class. (!!!) Oops. It was really no big deal - and extremely well organized. There were several breaks for us parent instructors and I had the opportunity to speak with some of the women who organized the retreat. In the end - I met a woman who was very open to seeing if we could get some of the kids with autism to receive their sacraments - particularly First Communion. She was a sassy smart Mom with whom I felt really comfortable. She likely doesn't know how her understanding and "can do" attitude gave me such a sense of faith again.

Now on to Thanksgiving we go....

Fall Joy

We are 2 months into school now - and I have managed a few trips into the school to see how things are going in my kids' classes. Zach is in a typical classroom, in fact he has the same teacher Sophia had. And he and Sophia get to go to the same school. I love that - it's obviously convenient for picking the kids up, knowing the staff and all, but what really tickles me is that Sophie loves to see Zach in the hall and give him a hug.

Zach is not able to tell me how is day was due to his limited communication. The teacher occasionally sends me an email or writes in his take home notebook about any concerns. These were frequent at the onset of the year, and have greatly diminished as time has gone on. When I originally was thinking - I can't ask Zach how his day went, I then thought back to Sophia and how I when I would ask her, she would answer "Good" I then would ask: "What did you do?" only to receive the inevitable: "I don't know."

I remember looking into this, and getting advice about asking more specific questions: "What was your favorite thing you did today?" Sophie: "All of it." Then I would ask: "What was your least favorite part?" Sophie: "I liked it all, Momma!" Me: "Who did you play with?" Sophia: "Everyone." Me: "Can you show me something you learned today?" Sophia: "Mom - I'm tired." Yup - so much for that expert internet advice.

In the fact that I was not able to get my uber-communicationaly-abled daughter to give me one ounce of information on command about her day, I let it go. What I did take note of was her behavior: she was happy and wanted to go to school. Was she learning? I suppose. Sophia had a good command of the information required for kindergarten prior to entrance. What she was always lacking was the fine motor skills - and we had been working on that for a l-o-n-g time as we continue to do so. But one other note: she came home with some phone numbers of girls who wanted playdates. I checked in with the teacher and her OT periodically, and let the rest go. She was healthy, happy, and progressing.

So here I am with Zach. I ask him how is day was and I sometimes get a "Goot." response, most likely rote from running "How are you?" in discrete trials in his home program. Having learned from Sophia, I paid attention to his behavior: he was happy and wanted to go to school. We went to the Family Night Bookfair at the school: Zach seemed happy to go and didn't show even a wince at entering the school - and in fact walked to his classroom with his Daddy and seemed frustrated when Steve would not let him enter the room. Did he want to show us where he spent his day??

The Jog-A-Thon is a fundraiser the school PTA does to raise funds for their activities at teh year. It involves the kids doing laps in the bus circle in front of the school and people paying donations per lap. Both my kids did it. Zach was silly and distracted and I ended up running the circle with him a bunch of times to give the Special Education teacher a break. But he did it - and a few of his classmates (particularly one precious little Julianne) cheered him on, even took his hand to encourage him to keep going.

Then on Columbus Day - Babcia Morphet and I decided to take Zach to the zoo while Sophia had a field trip with her Girl Scout troop. Did I happen to mention that I think Sophia got into the best troop with the greatest leader in the area? I had decided after our last trip to the zoo where Steve was chastised for having Zach in a stroller by a fellow patron - that with Babcia there to help - we would see how far Zach could walk on his own. And yes - some stranger did say something rude to Steve about having such an old child in a stroller. UUggghh.

So, off we went, it was a beautiful fall day. And we were managing pretty darn well. Babcia and I were so excited to come upon 3 baby Siberian tigers - they were so cute! We spent time at the Asian elephant exhibit - something the Syracuse is known for. As we were spending time in this area - I heard a little voice say: "Hi Zach!" I look over and a little boy was standing next to Zach. I asked him: "Honey, did you hear me call him Zach?" to which the little boy responded: "No - Zach is in my class with me!" What a thrill this was to experience. And that sort of was a clincher for me - a classmate thought enough of Zach to say hello to him. This outside incident made me feel good about the unknown of what was taking place in his classroom.

Zach's special education teacher and speech language pathologist also spent a few hours here at our house and met with one of Zach's private paraprofessionals. They got to tune into what sorts of things we work on here to help support what was going on in the classroom, and what strategies have the biggest pay off with motivating him.

Outside of school, Zach began to enjoy the monkey bars in our backyard these past few weeks. One day, the weather was cold, it was pouring rain out, and I heard the alarm for the door opening go off. There Zach was - running off into the rainy cold day right to the playset. I donned my jacket and rainboots and met him where we went on to do 10 iterations of going across the monkey bars in the 54 degree pouring rain. I cannot even imagine what the neighbors must think. But he was so happy.

We have had some really decent weather these past few weeks and Zach's interest in climbing and the monkey bars has continued. I feel so connected to him this way - I LOVED climbing when I was a kid - and still like to try and navigate my way up an old maple when given the chance. The joy of fitting your foot into a crook to gain leverage to raise yourself up another 12" from the ground can feel empowering and freeing. That's my boy.

Silence and Sharing

The value of a life had caused me to become mute. Oh, I had ideas, I had thoughts, we had experiences, of failure and joy, that could be shared. But I wasn't really sure what the value of that was. I wasn't sure what the value of sharing some of our intimate experiences was to myself, or to others. Most importantly I wasn't sure what it meant to Zach.

I, by most accounts, am not a fun person. That does not mean I don't have a sense of humor. Indeed, it is one of the things that helps me get through the day some days. However, if you want someone who is going to make you feel good or show you a good time, be the life of the party - yeah, well, what can I say? Not it.

I am analytical- seeing what can go wrong, the faults, the possibilities of failure. That is what likely drew me to engineering. This does not mean I am a negative person- I do not believe all is lost, that all people stink, that everything is ending and all is hopeless. I believe not all is at is appears, that details matter, that fine tuning can make big changes, that we shouldn't accept something as fact because it is convenient, as so often we all do. I want to build positive changes, I want to create things that have yet to be seen, I want to influence others to see their potential. I don't think that makes me negative at all. But fun? Yeah, well, not really.

I also believe that as much as I want to influence others in an effort to create positive change, I also accept that there are those beyond my reach - that my take on life doesn't jive with theirs. There are those who do not like what I do. There are those insulted by my posts. There are those who think that I am exploiting Zachary as I share our lives' story.

My sister recently pointed out that I have always been a person who who put herself out there. My mother, nearly 40 years my senior has never seen the value in discussing personal issues, as was the norm for her generation. My siblings, considerably older than myself vary in this capacity but generally tend to be more private in their personal dealings. Be assured, you do not see the whole picture of my family, some things are still left private, while others we feel need to be expressed.

I have contemplated over and over why I started this blog and what it has become, and what I want it to be. I initially was taking those snapshots of life in an effort to preserve memories - I used to take monthly shots of the kids and highlight the latest developmental milestones reached or activities involved in. Of course, this could have stayed that way, mostly facts and joy. But the milestones weren't being reached. What was I going to write about?

The participation in playdates and activities continued for one, but not the other. There was something wrong, there were these physical illness symptoms, requests for help from professionals, who gave no answers initially, and a bunch of people I deeply loved who had no guidance to offer, they had not been down this path before.

I realized that there were still milestones, just not ones as predicted for those who are typical. I felt alone especially when I would share our joys of small steps of achievement and people sometimes laughed. Or worse, they looked disappointed. I started to feel an overwhelming sense of being on a ship out to sea with no crew- a disconnect from the suburban upper middle class that I had long been associated with. No longer could I call a friend and say "Hey - does your kid do this weird thing?" only to be reassured that yes indeed, their kid did, or no, but they know so and so who did that.

I cannot even begin to tell you what this isolation feels like. Even amongst those in the special needs community - when you have a child unable to easily communicate this puts you into a minority of minorities. I have read varying reports - the statistics read that 25-30% of kids with autism are non-verbal. While others are worried about if their child can hold a socially appropriate, pragmatically correct conversation, I am hoping that when Zach is ill, that he can somehow indicate what is hurting. Both real concerns - but a distinct level of difference.

Something in life I have realized recently: you cannot make all the people happy any of the time. I have realized that when I share Zach's wins in life; his accomplishments, his development, there are those who think I am being a braggart. Furthermore, when I share Zach's needs and deviations, they think I am being a attention seeking, looking for pity, demeaning Zach whiner. The fact is - sometimes I do like to brag about my beautiful boy. And sometimes I do want someone to say: "Hey - sounds tough, I care, I'm here for you guys, we're listening." What I don't expect is for anyone to go out of there way to make our lives better - we are trying to do that for ourselves. And most importantly, what I hope to do for others is to let them know if they are on a similar path - those feelings, of regret, sorrow, grief, fear as well as joy, acceptance, anger, and fight are part of this journey with special needs. I will not apologize for my feelings. I will not apologize for trying to reach out to others who many be experiencing the same thing.

I am a better person because of the connections I have made from writing and reading about the journey of special needs. I have read blog posts of others that made me cry because they wrote exactly what I was feeling - something I might not have been able to express suddenly in front of my eyes, most likely from another mother, sharing an intimate piece of herself. They made me feel so much less alone. Sometimes they gave me practical information on strategies of working with Zach.

And when once in awhile someone not on our path makes some effort to show support when we are struggling - I cannot tell you what that means to our family. Those are the moments that help me regain some faith when I so often question why certain things are happening.

I am being true to myself by continuing this blog. I am better for it and I know it helps me be a better mother. I will likely offend, turn off, or otherwise irritate some. It is not my intention to hurt anyone, especially my children. And I feel that I am doing far more good here than any bad. I also have the support of my husband, who also has our children's best interest at heart.

For those who will continue to be upset by my blog, I feel that we have likely never had your support in the first place, and I ask that you not read it, for your own and our own good. I sometimes wonder if the people I upset likely have some lingering issues in their own lifethat may require some introspection. My silence will not make those go away.

I have always taken heat over my easy expression of things some think are better left unsaid. I expect those who have no regard for me or my families interests to attack when they don't like what I have said. I have hoped that those who love us to to respectfully express themselves if they are concerned about what I write, and some have.

Zach's autism is not something I am ashamed of. My discussion of our journey is to help bring about awareness of what one child's life looks like that has this diagnosis - because each case, each child is different from another. I read once somewhere: "We are all united by our shared humanity. But we are divided by our individuality." I feel that by talking about those differences, we can alleviate some of the fear of the unknown that frequently creates problems.

I wish everyone peace in this world. And I know nearly everyone, even those who don't like my blog, want to see Zach be happy. In an effort to extend to you what having the support of people not affected by autism can do for those who are - I would like to share two videos that have meant a lot to people with kids with ASD.


Peace.