Back to school

I’m waxing nostalgic about the twins going back to school on Tuesday. I resent that classes start so early in the summer. Seems to me they should take less days off during the year for teacher in-services. Why can’t they do those before the school year begins? Why cut a kid’s summer short? One of the reasons this is an …

Autism and First Place Chili

We’ve had a chili-cook-off tradition at our church for the past seven years or so. For the past three years my twin sons with autism have won first place! The first year, they used my recipe and I guided them through the process. The second year their Dad’s recipe was used and Dad entered with them. Last night they entered …

Autism + blizzard + flu = one tired Mama!

So, I now have two sick autie men (my kids with autism are 19 now), and there’s a blizzard outside. What could be more fun, right? I’m supposed to be working on two overdue manuscripts, but instead I’m feeding chicken soup to the two curled up together watching Downton Abbey. That’s not all bad, I suppose. But books and stories …

The perfect conditions for treating a patient with autism

I have long wanted to write a book for the medical community about how to deal with patients with autism. Our normal experiences with medical personnel as the twins were growing up, were less than admirable. Autism wasn’t known about as much as it is now. And I’m happy to report, after our experiences last Wednesday, that I have come …

Hallelujah! We have poop!

Hey, when you live with autism, you get excited about some strange stuff. This week I’m jumping for joy about poop. I’m not saying that when Isaiah woke me up first thing Friday with — “Mom! I pooped in the hat!” that it’s my favorite way to wake up. But let me tell you, it was a long-awaited event. Isaiah …