Our three kids in junior high. Today is the first day of school for my traditionally educated children. Our family now has: two 8th graders, one 7th grader, two 5th graders and a 1st grader. Yesterday was a chaos filled day of rushing from one school to another. Whoever makes decisions about these things apparently…
Tag: FASD
Summer Camp and Special Needs
Sunday we dropped our son with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder off for three weeks of summer camp. Three weeks of summer camp for typical kids. Long breaks from school are hard on my son. The security and sameness of routine at school help organize his thinking. Try as I might to follow a routine here…
The Care and Keeping of Teens
We’ve reached a new low in parenting. It’s called Pay Your Teen to Shower. Here’s how it works: Start with one oppositional teen who refuses to shower. Set up a shower schedule, in our case: Wednesday and Saturday. Lay out clear expectations: Teen must: wash hair, get body clean, use deodorant, put on clean clothes. If…
So Whatever Happened with the Autism Eval?
Sometimes I don’t even know where to begin. You know how frustrated I was with the 18-month wait for his first visit to Autism Center, the following visits, canceled visits, and visits where we just talked while he played on an iPad (provided by the Autism Center). They won’t do an autism eval because he has…
Autism Evaluation: Who Needs It?
And I really hope you could read the snark in that title. If not, you either a) have not been reading here long enough or b) need to change the battery on your Snark-o-Meter. Autism Evaluation Timeline: Referral: October 2014 Initial Visit and screening with nurse: April 2015 We talked and I gave her a…
The CDC and Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder: A Mother’s Perspective
The CDC and Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder: A Mother’s Perspective The CDC has angered a lot of women this week with its suggestion that women of childbearing age, who do not have permanent birth control in place abstain from alcohol. Their reasoning? “An estimated 3.3 million US women between the ages of 15 and 44…
Living with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder
Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder can manifest itself in a variety of ways, person to person. At its core, it is permanent brain damage caused by prenatal alcohol exposure. Here is a just a small taste of what we deal with on a daily basis. —- Imagine: Telling your child he can’t have a granola bar. This…
Compassion or Responsibility?
Post includes affiliate links. Yesterday was a red-letter day for Mordecai. We visited a Subway for lunch. Or breakfast, depending on your perspective. On our way home from Mordecai’s recent visit to an orthopedic surgeon he asked, “Mom, have you ever been to a Subway?” It turns out Mordecai has never been to a Subway,…
The Stigma of Hidden Special Needs
I have children with special needs. Hearing loss, heart defect…those don’t cause people to raise an eyebrow. A murmur of sympathy for my son who has endured heart surgery? Yes. A few polite questions about hearing loss? Sure. Judgment? No. But what about other special needs? Try telling someone your child was born addicted to…
Does Adoption Support Work?
It has now been three-weeks since Mordecai broke his foot. His insurance, granted to him as a newborn by Washington State, won’t approve a walking cast for his foot. He is literally walking around in a broken cast borrowed from friends. And after I wrote this the cast broke completely…so I will be calling his doctor…