Self Care and Autism
A Diagnosis For My Boy
Four years ago I watched you from my son’s bedroom window as you went back and forth with your colleague in your car– attempting to convince her that my son had autism. You both had just evaluated him. I understood the urgency– I knew that you understood. I didn’t have a fancy job title and didn’t have an outwardly impact on our society. I didn’t possess any powers and my neighbors didn’t know my name. I didn’t have anything to give or anything to spend other than being the best…
Read More13 Steps to Better Self Care
Self Care. Those two dreaded words. As a special needs mama, self care is the first thing to go when I feel sad. My son doesn’t talk. He doesn’t go to school. He doesn’t play. He doesn’t interact with children. He doesn’t play a sport or ride a bike. He doesn’t read. He doesn’t write. We rarely leave our house. We more so just live in his autistic world. And with that life comes a cycle of grief. The not knowing is hard. The knowing is hard. The accepting is…
Read MoreToday, Self Care is…
Today, self care is leaving work early to pick up Sawyer from preschool and waiting with him for five minutes while he examined a crack in the sidewalk. Which he was sure was a secret path to the middle of the earth. As I tried to rush him along he told me, ‘NO MAMA. I am doing science.’ So of course, I squatted down beside him, in the cold and drizzle, and looked for the center of the earth. Self care is getting home in the daylight and walking my…
Read MoreHaircut Tips for Autistic Children
I can think of a lot of struggles that Cooper and I have had over the years. He is autistic and nonverbal. That alone is hard. But to this day, one of his biggest struggles was and is getting a haircut. When Cooper was two we visited a local Cost Cutters for his first trim. We put it off forever because we knew it was going to be awful. Cooper hated to sit and be touched by strangers. So, we went very early in the morning and hoped for the…
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