Posts by Kate Swenson

Today, my freshman boy started a new school. A school just for kids like him. Autism is the norm there. Not the exception. I feel like it’s taken a hundred years to get to today. That’s how it is with autism though. It takes time. And waiting. And hoping and praying. And lots of decisions. Today was the day though. We said goodbye to public school and started something new. The morning didn’t feel much different. I woke him up. I dressed him. We giggled about deodorant. I prepared his…

There was a time before we knew it was autism.I call it the in between space. And often say that the not knowing was harder than knowing. We lived in that place for three short years. A blip really in his fifteen years.I knew something was different with my sweet boy. Possibly even from the second he was born. But I hoped. And I prayed that I was wrong.And these two, they were my benchmarks.My bestfriend’s kids.I grew up with their moms. 35 plus years we’ve been friends.Our babies will…

I just got home from a car ride with my son Cooper. A rare time where it was just the two of us. The ride, taking 30 minutes, was joyful. He showed me an excavator. An airplane. And more than a dozen semi trucks. He moo’d at cows. Showed me a fire truck on his Kindle screen. And then tapped his chest, letting me know that he wants to ride a fire truck. He danced. And waved. He giggled at penguins on his screen before showing me how they waddle.…

My son, Today was one of those days. One where you seemed confused by the world. One where I didn’t know how to help. Or fix it. Autism. Woven into everything you do. Into the way you think and see and react. Only I can’t see what you see. Or hear what you hear. Or feel what you feel. Today, when I got the call to pick you up from school, I felt confused. A hard day. I’ll never know why. But with you, the stakes feel a bit higher.…

I don’t know a world without autism. And I forget sometimes, when we are out in the wild, that we are different. Because to us, our son is just our son. He isn’t autistic Cooper. He is Cooper. And we have been living this life for 15 years now. We don’t know a different life. And then something will happen. Like last weekend. We went to a restaurant. A real one. With people and noise. Cooper sat on the floor. It’s always his seat of choice. An autistic adult told…

This morning my third son had an early morning hockey practice. Setting the alarm for 6:30 am for a Saturday always cuts a little deep. Ten minutes before my alarm was supposed to go off, my eyes snapped open. Lights were on everywhere. And laying on my chair was my boy. Full dressed in his hockey clothes. He woke up and dressed himself. Typical development amazes me. I say that a lot on here. But it’s true. Typical development is a gift. Children that just know and do and try…

When I started this page years back, I did it for a few reasons. I wanted to find families like mine. And kids like my Cooper. I wanted to learn all that I could about autism, the spectrum and what it could look like as my sweet son aged. I wanted to build a village of parents, teachers, therapists, and friends who wanted to support and raise each other up. I wanted to create a safe space for families to share the unique wins and struggles that we encounter on…

There is a saying I heard a while back that reframed a lot of how I parent my autistic son. Am I helping or hurting? Let me set the scene first. I ordered pizza for my four kids tonight. It’s been a day and pizza sounded good. I was busy doing a few things so my second son Sawyer, who is 13, dished up his plate. He is not one to wait for food. Minutes later when I walked into the living room I saw his older brother Cooper eating…

When my son’s autism was discovered twelve years ago, I wasn’t ready to think about the future. Nope. I focused solely on the present and helping him. And it wasn’t easy. It wasn’t like help just rolled in. I learned quickly there is no prescription for autism. Instead, it was trial and error. And a whole lot of advocating (fighting) for services and supports. But hard work paid off. And he was worth every bit of the hard. When he turned 8, I was ready to dip my toe into…