Treasure Your Friends

I consider my friends to be special "gems." I treasure each and every one of them. To have friends you have to be a friend. Simple, but true!! Some of my friends I have had for a long time, others a relatively short time. According to dictionary.com a friend is "a person attached to another by feelings of affection or personal regard." With me, what you see is what you get. I am 100% trustworthy and very loyal. I don't try to be someone that I'm not. That is definitely a really good way to lose a friend. That or go around spreading that person's business all over the place. I have told other moms stuff that I thought was in confidence, only to find out it had been spread around. I consider my friendships like my marriage, it's built on trust. I have friends that have seen me at my absolute worst. I have friends that have passed on, but I still keep them in my thoughts and prayers. Unfortunately, I have had more than one friend that turned out not to be who I thought they were and we have chosen to part ways. You have to keep friends around you that will support you no matter what and pump you up, not tear you or your family down. Childhood friends that I thought I would never hear from again, I've reconnected with on Facebook. I get a kick out of "chatting" with them. It's like no time has gone by at all. My philosophy is to be good to your friends and they will be good to you!

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Those "Steps" to Independence Can Be Hard

We are heading towards 600 orders for Dominic's business. Since our long-term goal for Baked Goods By Dominic is having a "brick-and-mortar" and hire those with disabilities, it is essential and imperative that I continue to teach him all parts of the business. Since I prompted Dominic for so many years for speech, he has become "prompt dependent." What that essentially means is that he will look at me for a prompt, like, "what do you do next?" I do that one a lot. Dominic has been going to a private speech therapist for over ten years and she reminds me often that Dominic usually will know the answer, if I am patient and wait for him. That has been a very hard habit to break! Dominic has an incredible memory, so I put it to the test this morning. I didn't write out the steps, I wanted to see how much he could do completely on his own. We have a customer picking up his order today, but the only thing that had been done is putting the cookies into t...

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Last Thursday morning, my husband, Dominic and I went to our county's Probate Court and had Dominic's Guardianship Hearing. My husband and I are Co-Guardians, and we were granted "Partial Guardianship," which means Dominic can make some of his own decisions (future educational and vocational placement options, what to wear and how he wants to spend his free time), but my husband and I will make his medical, health care, legal, contractual and major financial decisions. The subject of Guardianship in the disability "world" has been and continues to be a controversial and divisive topic. I was a panelist for an Autism Conference this past summer and presented on what it's like to have a child with Autism. Towards the end of my presentation, I mentioned that Dominic had just turned 18 and that we were going through the Guardianship process. When the attendees could ask questions, the first person that went up to the microphone started telling me that I was...

Presume Competence

Since we have traveled outside of the United States since Dominic was very small, we have had to get him a Children's Passport every five years. Since his current one expires in February of 2024 and he is now 19, we had to apply for an Adult Passport. I don't know why my husband and I picked Dominic's first day of school and Michigan State University moving in their students, but the appointment was yesterady at 3 p.m. We had gathered all of the documents needed and then went into a special room in the East Lansing Post Office just for Passports. The three of us sat down and the clerk asked Dominic his age. He said, "19." Since we were also getting his picture taken for the Passport, he went into a separate room, where she took a picture of him and then let him look at it to make sure he liked it (it will be his picture for the next 10 years)! He said he did, so he sat back down with us. The clerk filled out a bit more of the paperwork and then she let Dominic s...

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