When Brother was diagnosed with autism, I felt grief.  I grieved for him.  I grieved for his sisters.  I grieved for Ben.  And, yes, I grieved for myself.  The life I had envisioned for all of us was going down the toilet.  I didn't know what the future held for him.  I just knew it…

When my son was 2, we moved from Texas to Missouri.  There were many changes going on in his life.  We were leaving the only home he had ever known and his father was home.  He started to repeat things incessantly.  I noticed it first when we were driving to Missouri.  I didn't even know…

Before I talk about anxiety, I wanted to talk about how autism is a spectrum disorder.  Brother is on the high end of the spectrum.  He missed an Asperger's diagnosis by one thing, his language skills.  However, his problems are many and varied.  He just functions better than some.  Because autism is a spectrum disorder,…

When we listen to people talk, we can hear everything quite well.  People with auditory processing difficulties cannot hear everything they listen to.  I can be talking to Brother and he appears to be listening, but what he is hearing is not anything close to what I'm saying.  He, at times, hears static instead of…

Brother's social skills aren't up to par but he has improved quite a bit in the past three years.  He converses with people and for the most part can communicate correctly–meaning with a give and take instead of a monologue.  However, he cannot pick things up intuitively.  He doesn't see that the person he is…

Before I was educated in the traits of autism, I would get frustrated at my son.  He couldn't do what I thought were simple tasks.  I thought he was just being defiant.  One psychologist actually mentioned to me that he could be ODD (oppositional defiant disorder).  It turns out he's just autistic and has motor…

A conversation could go something like this: Brother:  Is antidisestablishmentarianism the longest word? Me:  I don't know. Brother:  Do you know the longest word? Me:  No, I don't. Brother:  Do you think it's anitdisestablishmentarianism? Me:  I'm not sure. Brother:  What do you think it is? Me:  I.  Don't.  Know.

My son loves facts.  He will focus on one subject for long periods of time and learn all he wants to about that subject.  He's gone through birds, dinosaurs, and 9/11.  His obssession with 9/11 is the most recent.  He has tried to wrap his brain around the whole tragedy but has a lot of…

We are blessed with a great insurance plan that pays for all of our services.  The local school district refuses to provide services of any kind to homeschoolers (never mind that I pay property taxes).  We have three different types of therapies each week.  We used to have one, but he was discharged from physical…

One of my favorite moments in the day happens early in my day.  Every morning, I walk into my son's room and open one side of the curtains.  Too much light, and the day is ruined.  Then I lay down next to him and wake him up gently.  I usually hug and kiss him softly…