When most people think of skateboarding, their first thoughts are usually something along the lines of misfit teens, punk rock, or maybe even guys like Tony Hawk. What they don’t think about, is just how amazing skateboarding is for kids who need occupational therapy. Kids like Everett, who are on the autism spectrum. Kids like …
Today we have a special guest post from a local Birmingham mother, Marjorie. I met Marjorie shortly before the pandemic hit and really enjoyed getting to know her. We both have 2 kiddos, the bigs are both on the spectrum and in kindergarten, while our littles are only a month apart in age. It’s nice …
Tuesday night we had the opportunity to go see the newest addition to the “Blippi-verse,” Blippi Live. Needless to say, the kids were overjoyed. I was slightly nervous, wondering if they would realize that the “Blippi” they were seeing in person wasn’t actually Stevin John and I’d have to potentially defuse a bad situation. However, the gentleman that they chose to portray Blippi, was pretty spot on. If I hadn’t spent more hours than I’d like to admit staring at the “real” Blippi, (thanks to Finn for watching him on repeat), I’d likely never know the difference. The kids were utterly entranced the entire time he was on stage.
This week, in addition to being cyberbullied, I also had to face the harsh reality that my son is perhaps the “bully” in his classroom. I spend a few minutes every school day talking to his teacher so I can make sure that we are as much on the same page as possible. Wednesday she …
It’s Your Fault That Your Child Is Autistic Recently, I experienced my first real taste of anti-vax cyber bullying. She essentially accused me of causing Everett’s autism. And she didn’t stop there. So tonight, I’d like to address her vitriol with a few rebuttals. Unfortunately, I wasn’t truly able to respond the way I wanted …
Today is the last day of Autism Awareness Month and I wanted to end with a bang. I want to talk about invisible disabilities. Autism is just a small slice in the invisible disability world, studies show that 96 percent of people who live with an illness live with an invisible one, and 73 percent …
We get a lot of questions about where we buy our rad outfits, especially for our advocacy items, so I figured today was a perfect day to showcase some of our favorites! As an added bonus, some of the shops will be having sales today and/or donating to Autism positive organizations throughout the month. Rockin …
I’ve been toying with the idea of reflection. Reflecting on how life has changed and how we are handling it. By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest. Confucius I’m learning about advocating and proactively confronting …
Everett gets 1 hour of therapy with a trained therapist per week. We rotate biweekly between occupational therapy and feeding therapy/yoga. What does that mean? The other 167 hours in the week are ALL ME. Granted, he sleeps for part of that, so lets say approx 100 hrs a week, I’m focusing on what I …
My child is autistic. There, I said it. I brought up the elephant in the room. I said the “A” word you whisper about, out loud. Yet when you say it out loud, I mentally cringe. I wonder if I’ll ever get used to hearing someone else say it. If it will ever feel like …