April 2, 2019. Dear Jacob, This is our fist year to celebrate April 2, also known as Autism Awareness Day. I want to be clear that we are choosing to celebrate you, not your diagnosis. In my mind, those are two very different things. You are so much more than your diagnosis. I would feel [...]
Category: Autism
Across The Spectrum
If you are lucky enough to know my husband, you'd know that mobile gaming is his jam. He manages 11 accounts on Clash of Clans, but he swears he only really plays 6 of them. He's an avid sports enthusiast and will call-out every bandwagon fan he comes across. He prides himself on his photographic [...]
Autism Awareness Month
April is Autism Awareness Month. Since the diagnosis last November, the phrase we hear most often is: Let us know if there's anything we can do to help. I realize that for most people, this is usually just part of the script. It's what we've been taught to say when we hear bad news. It's [...]
60 Day Follow Up
This week marked Jacob's first 60 days under the care of Dr. Jerry Kartzinel. Our youngest has endured two months of daily supplements, 30 hours of ABA therapy, 12 hours of speech therapy and 2 hours of occupational therapy. The biggest question people want to know -- is it making any difference? Yes. And no. [...]
This and That …
Most of my work day is spent in my office with teenagers. Give a student a comfortable chair, the freedom to speak as he or she wishes and the safety of a non-judgmental space and the words just come. The feelings and thoughts they usually keep guarded inside, sometimes spew out before they can stop [...]
Our Support System
I rarely do things alone. I've never lived alone. Before motherhood, I rarely visited stores alone. In college, I preferred to study as part of a group. Even professionally, what I love most about middle school counseling is that there are two of us working together. So it would stand to reason that once the diagnosis [...]
Our Red Flags
A question we often get is, how did we know? What was it that we saw, or didn't see, in Jacob before the official diagnosis that had us questioning Autism to begin with? To set the stage, you must know that the saying "ignorance is bliss" is very true. Unfortunately, we didn't have the privilege [...]
