Posts by Kate Swenson

When you have a child who communicates differently than most, you learn to listen with more than your ears. You learn to communicate with a look, a touch, a gesture. Words became less important. You read your child’s needs just by looking at their eyes. A simple look is all you need. You know what a sounds means. One grunt or squeal can tell you everything you need to know. A flap of a hand or a stomp means happy or stressed. Some days you swear you can even feel…

Tonight was one of those really special nights. Our family, along with 25 or so other families, spent an evening with Santa Pj and Sparkles the Elf. Some kids lined up chairs. Another watched an old 1950’s train docu-series on YouTube called Hobart and Cosmo. A few played tag. Some did crafts. One young man had a stack of paper with printed photos of the vintage treasures he wanted. Another young man wore noise canceling headphones the entire time. A few used speech devices to say…’hi Santa.’ One beautiful girl…

I don’t know how you do it… Last night I shared a video on Instagram of my autistic son ripping paper and books. It’s a new behavior. It’s really loud. And messy. I shared it for a glimpse into the beauty and reality of our world. I could tell you why he does it. He wants to have all the pieces of the magazines and books in his hands. He’s a sensory seeker. He likes to see and touch. To spread the pages out. To line them up. It makes…

I was rushing to get out of the house. Helping Cooper with his shoes and wrestling the baby into her jacket. Only she’s in that…‘I do it myself mama’ phase. I filled water bottles and packed a bag and grabbed snacks. Made sure kids had hats and gloves and Cooper had his speech device and that I looked halfway presentable. You know, doing all of the things. Cooper, my oldest, who is autistic, was nonverbally letting me know that he was going to bring all hundred of his treasures. Sawyer,…

There is a quote that says, ‘don’t ever save anything for a special occasion. Every day your alive is a special occasion.’ My son Cooper reminds me of that quote every single day. The reason I’m sharing it with you is because someone recently commented on one of my posts, pointing out that we always have balloons in our house. And it’s true, they are everywhere. They drift through the house, from room to room. Birthday balloons. Dora balloons. Square. Round. All brightly colored. Some old. Some new. Why? Because…

Nonverbal communication is a pretty amazing thing really. My son Cooper, the one in the middle, he communicates mostly with sounds: Think grunts and squeals and gasps. He points a lot. And brings things to us and brings us to things. He places his hands on ours and guides them in certain ways. He touches our lips and uses his hands to turn our faces to see things. He uses his iPad to show us pictures or videos of things he wants to tell us about. He does some typing.…

Recently we ventured to the store for a few things. Eggs. Milk. Nerf gun bullets. And 2 pieces of paper. The essentials. Obviously. Outings as a family are still relatively new for us. And while they are far from perfect, they are real. See, we have a kid who is just learning about waiting and buying and walking and all the parts of the world. While our son Cooper is making amazing progress at stores and by amazing, I mean huge leaps and bounds…so much of it is still hard…

My son Cooper is nonspeaking. I know that’s a confusing classification. I even sometimes struggle to explain it. See when it comes to autism, and the spectrum you hear about, the waters are often muddy. He said his first word at age 8. It was mom. Now he says it no less than 50 times a day. But he couldn’t tell you his name under pressure or if he is in pain. He can’t use the phone but he can type the name of his favorite movie into YouTube. He…

My son said the word balloon this morning. I didn’t catch it right away. I was packing his lunch and putting toothpaste on a toothbrush while simultaneously signing a form for his school. It was a chaotic morning to say the least. That’s when he said it the second time. BA – LL – OOOOO – N Now a 12 year old boy saying the word balloon probably doesn’t seem like that big of a deal. But it is. It’s huge. My son was diagnosed with nonspeaking autism at age…

I think sometimes we end up exactly where we are supposed to be. Maybe even just for a moment. Today, as Cooper’s mom, the world had something to show me. This morning we brought our younger son to see Beauty and the Beast. And I’ll tell you, when you have four kids, it can be a bit tricky to make one on one time work. Like moving mountains honestly. But we made it happen. As we sat waiting for the show to start, I noticed the group sitting down behind…