Maintaining a "Connection"

Lauren starts her second semester of her junior year of college this coming Monday! Good grief. That went by SO fast. In the "olden," days (when I was 20), there was no such thing as texting and Skyping to keep connected with family and friends. The "twenty-somethings," of today rely on texting, Snapchatting, etc. I think one of the happiest days of Lauren's life was when I FINALLY decided to ditch my TracFone!!! Yes, I now use an iPhone. Anyways, her winter break has been long and with the hubby and Dominic both going back to work and school today, respectfully, we decided to head out to the local outlet mall. I am so lucky that Lauren still values my opinion and I can be truthful with her. We hit three or four different stores and since the holidays are over, the parking lot/stores were pretty much empty. We got some really, really great deals. Lauren wants to go to law school after she graduates in 2018, so we were over the moon when we found a designer dress that was 60% off! She wants to "intern," and we are working on building a wardrobe full of professional clothes. I think my favorite conversations with Lauren today were on the 1/2 hour drive to and from the outlet mall. We rarely have "alone," time and I really miss that. I treasure those moments when I have her all to myself, because they are so rare. Thanks my sweet girl for an awesome afternoon!

Comments

A Book Every Autism Mom Should Read

When Dominic was diagnosed with Autism at 2 1/2, I went to our local library and took out every book I could find about Autism. Sometimes I would bring back 20 books. This was 2006, so a lot of the information was very "dated." I guess I was looking for a book that would tell me what I should do next, like a "manual." Autism doesn't quite work that way! The saying is, " if you know one person with Autism, you know one person with Autism." Every mom to an individual with Autism follows their own "path." I think as moms, we judge ourselves much harder than anyone else does. I was 41 when I had Dominic. Did he get the diagnosis of Autism because I was an older mom? because I drank a lot of pop? I could sit and think about that every minute of every day. I am pretty integrated into the Autism community around Lansing and have told more than one person that it took me about two weeks to come to terms with Dominic's diagnosis. It is so incredib...

Mainstreaming and Inclusion

The hubby and I were discussing the other day how special education students were treated back when he and I were in school. He remarked to me that in his time, they were "hidden away" from the rest of the students. When I was in elementary school, I can remember seeing the kids in those classrooms pass by us in the hallway. I don't ever recall seeing them in the lunchroom or playground. I'm so glad that times have changed. Even though Dominic is in a "self-contained" special education classroom, he does get to go to the art, gym and music classrooms. He also gets to eat lunch in the school cafeteria. He loves hot lunch on Thursday - pizza!! Given Dominic's abilities, he is able to be "mainstreamed" into the general education classroom for small amounts of time. Every moment he is able to do that gives me so much hope for his future. I absolutely love what Dominic's current teacher is doing. He has started a peer-to-peer progra...

It's a "Group" Effort

Since going to the local barbershop is still not allowed where we live, it fell upon us to figure out the best way to shave Dominic's beard and mustache. Typically, Dominic goes to our local barbershop to get his haircut and his barber (Vince) also takes about 30 seconds to shave the beard and mustache. This August, it will be five years that Dominic has been going to Vince. That in itself is a huge milestone as anyone with a child/adult with sensory sensitivities knows. Anyways, earlier in the week my hubby, Lauren and I had all noticed that Dominic's facial hair definitely needed some assistance. I mentioned to Lauren that I needed to find a "social story" about getting a shave. Before I had a chance to find one, she took it upon herself to find one and print it out, it had both an electric shaver and shaving cream/razor stories! That meant so much to me, because she didn't have to do that, she wanted to! I showed the social story to Dominic and sai...

bountifulplate

Search This Blog