bountifulplate

I belong to a handful of Facebook pages that have to do with special needs.  Last week, a post popped up from the group, " Spread the Word to End the Word ." The group's main aim is to "eliminate the demeaning use of the word "retarded." Evidently, a company who sells merchandise through Amazon.com were selling t-shirts with the phrase, "You're Retarded" on it. The group was asking that we contact the company and ask them to stop selling the shirt.  With no hesitation at all, I took a few minutes to send an e-mail to the company saying, "I have a son with Autism, and the shirt you are selling with the saying, "You're Retarded" is extremely disrespectful to my son and to all other children and adults with special needs. It would be great if you wouldn't sell those type of shirts! Thanks so much :)" Imagine my surprise, that within five minutes, I received this e-mail in response: "Hello and thank you fo...

Three weeks from tomorrow, Lauren will be moving into her dorm. She has signed up for her first year of classes, has had an orientation and met her roommate. She is extremely organized and has made a "master" list of what she needs and every time I get a coupon in the mail or on-line, we go and get it. On our last two trips to Kohl's, we saved more than we spent. I think even the salesclerk was impressed :) I have been asked how I feel about my middle "baby" bird leaving our comfy "nest." I am so blessed that Lauren and I have an awesome relationship and I know that I will miss her a lot. I am also realistic and know that for her to keep growing and maturing, I have to let her go. The other day, her cell phone received a text. I said, "aren't you going to see who that is?" Lauren said, "you told me I couldn't text at the dinner table!" It's definitely a learning experience when you have an adult child living i...

Earlier this week, Lauren and I were in our local World Market store and I was looking around the candy section, when I came across this sign that said "Nostalgia Treats." According to dictionary.com, nostalgia means, "sentimental or wistful yearning for the happiness felt in a former place, time or situation." I took a glance around at the candy and told Lauren, "this is candy from my childhood!" I bought some candy "buttons" and Lauren and I each ate a strip. When I graduated from high school in 1981, I lost touch with pretty much every single one of my childhood friends. I truly didn't think that I would ever see or talk to them ever again. Well, thanks to social media, I was able to put together a "mini-reunion" of sorts at my parents house last year when the hubby, the kids and I were in town.  A handful of my old friends showed up and it was an awesome afternoon, catching up!! This past Tuesday, I accompani...

Last week, I gave Dominic a word search of the United States to work on.  He knows about 30-35 of the capitals, so when I asked him what the capital of Missouri was and he didn't know, he went into his pile of puzzles (on his own), fished a puzzle of the United States out and said, "Jefferson City!"  This may not sound like a big deal, but I was so excited.  Dominic didn't ask me to give him the answer, but rather found the answer himself!  With Lauren heading to college in about a month, she has been "training" Dominic to take over her dinner "duties." She has set the table and helped me get the plates to the dinner table for as far back as I can remember. When we used to serve Dominic first, he would start digging in and be almost done by the time I sat down to eat.  Since he started helping me about a month ago, he takes his plate to the dinner table last. We are still teaching him how to keep the plate level, because last week when we had spagh...

I had a boss from a former job one time tell me, "Cathy, you are too sensitive!" I can recall being more than a little taken aback. Both Lauren and Dominic have inherited the "sensitivity" gene from me, that's for sure. When Lauren was younger and I got upset with her, I would raise my voice just a little to get my point across. I guess to her it sounded like I was "barking" at her. She would say, "get rid of those barks!" One day last week,  Dominic was doing something that I didn't want him to do, I gave him a few warnings and he still didn't stop. He instead was laughing at me, so I "barked" at him!  His face went from laughing to his bottom lip quivering and his eyes welling up with tears within about five seconds. The next day, I said something like, 'was mommy happy or mad at you last night?"  He said, "mad." Yep, I think he got the message.  I try not to trot out my "barks" unless I have a...

How many of you out there have ever heard of the word, "stim?" I never had, until Dominic was diagnosed with Autism. Stimming is another word for "self-stimulating" behavior. Two examples of that type of behavior are head banging and spinning around in circles.  Dominic did some head banging when he was a lot littler, but thankfully, it didn't last too long. If you sometimes see a little girl or boy who has Autism wearing a helmet, they most likely are a head banger. Believe me, it's for their own protection. Dominic also likes to turn around in circles and telling him he'll get dizzy is useless. He rarely does that now. There is also verbal "stimming" which is also known as "scripting."  That is the repetition of sentences or phrases. It can be a sentence or phrase heard from a teacher, parent, sibling, friend or possibly even the television or a movie. It could have been something heard yesterday or five years ago.  This is definite...

Whenever my stepson comes to visit us, we always try and get some family pictures.  It usually becomes the picture that we put in our Christmas cards.  We put Lauren's camera on a tripod, set the timer and hope for the best! We have taken pictures inside. We have taken pictures outside. We have had to do it this way since Dominic was a baby because he will only sit still for 5-10 seconds and then he takes off running, screaming, crying or a combination of all three.  How many of you can remember back to when you had to take a roll of film out of a camera and then mail it away somewhere? I sure can! It seemed like it took FOREVER to get the pictures back. My mom was really good about taking pictures and putting them into albums. I love showing Lauren those old photo albums when we go back to visit my parents. It's like taking a trip down memory lane!  When we cleaned out my in-law's house in Cleveland, I made sure that I took every single pictu...

When we signed Dominic up for baseball through a special needs sports league, we had high hopes that it would be a good "fit."   Well, he did fine the first game, but the second game he cried through most it.  I mostly attributed it to him having been up since 4:30 a.m. that morning and having seen a few gnats and mosquitoes (he is terrified of any kind of "bug").  The week prior to the third game, he kept telling me, "take a little break from baseball" at least once a day. Think he was trying to tell me something?!?!?!  I told him before we drove to the field, that we would try it one more time and if he really wasn't enjoying himself, he didn't have to go anymore.  Shortly after we got to the field, he saw a mosquito.  Well, that was it.  He walked off the field and started crying. We encouraged him to take his turn at bat and in the field. Lauren even went out to the field with him and so did his "buddy" (who was extremely ...