In the past few days, like a lot of parents, I've started my holiday shopping for my daughter. Or at least tried to. This is one of those times that the differences between Bridget and "normal" children becomes extremely apparent. While most parents (especially of children similar in age to her – five) are trying [...]
Bridget goes through what seems like "fits and starts" in her development. She will seem stuck in the same place for awhile, making no progress despite all the attempts we make and her school staff makes to move her forward. Then, just when we are exhausted from beating our head against the brick wall, and [...]
This was me yesterday at the Epcot Food & Wine Festival: Surrounded by several dozen booths serving exotic food samples and what did I go straight for? The Refreshment Port that serves McDonald's food. Most of the festival stuff is just too spicy or savory for my taste. Or has too many vegetables. I prefer [...]
If your autistic child is like mine, holiday shopping is a bit, well, challenging. Unlike "normal" kids her age, Bridget likes so few toys. She mostly likes her computer and her videos, and her books. She has a few toys that she likes, but buying toys for her is really rolling the dice on whether [...]
I wanted to take a moment to say thank you to everyone who expressed their sympathy for our situation last week with our cat being so sick, and to say thank you to everyone who contacted me to share their suggestions from their experiences to help our daughter through this. Disney is lying sleeping on [...]
Today, I’m turning to the community here for advice. I’m hoping some of you might be able to share helpful tips on helping my 5 year old daughter with autism understand what appears to be the impending death of our elderly cat, Disney. We’ve known for some time that the kitty was living on borrowed [...]
I knew when I wrote my previous piece (Jenny McCarthy Ticks Me Off) that it was likely to bring out the extremists to argue with me about it (which it did in the comments of it – I’ll spare you the recitation of the usual arguments by the anti-vaccination extremists but they are all there). [...]
I never pictured, the day that we fed our daughter her first solid food almost 5 years ago, that I would be sitting here today with a cupboard full of Gerber foods that are still all that she will eat at 5 years old. I never pictured that she would be going off to kindergarten [...]
I’m having another one of those days when I really wish my daughter could talk to me. Within two hours of coming home from school yesterday she spiked a fever over 101. She seemed a bit more tired than usual when I picked her up. Then when I found her curled up in bed trying [...]
Sometimes things happen that make you realize exactly how much extra effort it requires to take care of a child who simply cannot communicate even basic things most of the time. Because of her severe eating problems, Bridget takes her lunch to school every day. She needs a straw cup to drink her milk from, [...]
