I know I’ve been gone forever. I go through these droughts where I don’t know what to say about Cooper. Trust me I have hundreds of things I could write about but the words don’t seem to flow out. Maybe I am too tired. Or overwhelmed. I don’t really have an answer. We are still having major potty training struggles and successes. Cooper is pee trained but his pooping is worse than ever. We have made the decision to keep Cooper at Fraser day treatment for one more year. So…
I think Cooper falls in a really weird place on the autism spectrum. In some ways he is severe. He doesn’t speak. He has zero self-care. And hardest of all he has no self-awareness. Cooper doesn’t know he is autistic. He doesn’t know he is different. He doesn’t know that he has no friends…He most likely doesn’t know what a friend is. But on the opposite side he isn’t violent. He isn’t mean. He is easy to care for. He smiles and laughs and requests hugs and kisses. And I…
Yesterday I spent the whole day with my boys. Alone. Stuck in the house. It was glorious and exactly what I needed to recharge my life. I chose to clean and paint and play and organize and do laundry and unpack. So, a very typical Sunday at my house. As I did each of my manic tasks my little Sawyerbean tagged along. Where ever I went…he went. He offered to help with every single chore I was doing. He made messes. He asked questions. He spent a good majority of…
I was filling out Cooper’s application for the Minnesota Autism Center earlier this week and I had to write down his diagnosis. It kills me every time. He has multiple. Language Disorder, Autism Spectrum Disorder and the killer…lack of normal physiological development. And we could very easily add Apraxia in there. Sigh. It’s hard. It hurts. And I hate it. I hate it so much I could scream. Anyhow, I stumbled across this on Facebook today and it’s a damn good reminder of the power a parent can have. It…
This story about the service dog that comforts an autistic boy made my whole morning. I’m not sure if it is because I am an insane dog person. My puppies are my babies. They are my children. Or, if it’s because Cooper will soon be having his fourth surgery. 3 sets of tubes, a tummy blockage and now adenoids. And if I was to rank some of the hardest days of my life those surgery days would be up there. I would give anything to provide comfort to Cooper. I…
I’m on this mission to share stories of autism that give us hope. Mostly, stories that give me hope. Enough sadness. I’m very vocal that my greatest fear is that people will be mean to Cooper. It could be a fellow child. It could be a teacher or a caregiver. Or it could be a complete stranger. There is a handicapped boy that works at our local grocery store. He is slower than the other people that work there. He is harder to understand. But he is the happiest person…
I haven’t given an old fashioned Cooper update in a long time. I remember reading updates when I used to follow a lot of autism blogs and comparing my kiddo to theirs. I would be like, Cooper can do that but wait, oh, shit, he can’t do that. It was good and bad. So, don’t do that. No comparing. Each kiddo is different. Language: No words at all. He doesn’t even have a sound for a word. Nothing consistent at all. That’s hard. I always wanted him to make a…
When Cooper wakes up in the middle of the night and comes to my bed he touches my face. He usually rubs my forehead and lays his hand on my cheek. It is so gentle that sometimes it takes me a second to register he is even there. Although he struggles with social cues, emotions, showing love, controlling his anger, etc., he is hands down the sweetest child I have ever met. I can’t even summarize his innocence with words. I don’t know how people could give up. It’s just…
I received an email from a fellow autism parent. It was so raw I actually cried when I read it. I wanted to crawl through the computer and hug this person. It resonated with me so deeply. This person reads my blog so I know they will see that I used their email. I just can’t stop thinking about it. I could have written this myself. I so get it friend. I read it this morning. I actually stumbled across it in my junk mail folder. I almost missed it.…
I received Cooper’s Kindergarten packet in the mail a few weeks ago and like it was planned….I promptly lost it. The packet actually came the exact day that we were moving to our new house. So, you can understand why it got lost. The chaos of moving was too much. And to be honest, I have been dreading that damn packet like the plague. I don’t want Cooper to go to a mainstream kindergarten. It makes me feel completely helpless and out of control.I remember when Cooper was 3 or…
