bountifulplate

I have mentioned before that when we first received Dominic's diagnosis of Autism at age 2 1/2 , my first thought was him as an adult sorting paperclips into boxes. I thought he would never talk. I knew nothing at all about Autism. I did grow up with a neighbor named Tommy who had intellectual disabilities and he would visit our home frequently.  This was the 1970's when those with disabilities were separated in school and many parents were told to institutionalize their children. Looking back, Tommy's parents went against that thinking. They let him walk around the neighborhood unsupervised. I never asked Tommy if he had Autism, we accepted him the way he was.  Speaking of acceptance, it took me about two weeks to come to terms with Dominic's diagnosis of Autism. In my own opinion, I think that is very important to do because you really can't move forward until you have done that. After the diagnosis of Autism, Dominic subsequently received diagnoses of ADHD, Gener...

While this Pandemic in some ways has been good (like doing our daily walks), I have definitely noticed Dominic becoming more agitated at things that typically wouldn't have bothered him so much, pre-Pandemic. It has got to be SO hard to be a teenager with limited language and be in puberty. Everyone goes through puberty, whether you are typically-developing or not. When Lauren was a teenager, she would go to her room, shut the door and get some alone time. Dominic doesn't do that during the day. He only uses his room to sleep . We have worked really hard with the private speech therapist on how to manage his emotions. He used to go in our living room and hit the bay windows with the palms of his hands. Definitely not the best way to express how he is feeling. Slowly, he transitioned from hitting the wall to throwing a pillow on the ground. Last night, our evening was going well until he looked at his "schedule" from school. Dominic's teacher is awesome. She puts ...

About two years ago, Dominic's private speech therapist starting teaching him the process of when you do chores, you get an allowance. You then save up that money and buy something that you really want. In Dominic's case, it has been Legos .  If you have a child/adult that likes Legos , you know how expensive they are! Sometimes, it has taken Dominic three months to save up enough money (he gets $5.00/week).  About a month or so ago, I took a look around our house and I felt like we were living in a Lego factory. They were literally everywhere!! I couldn't walk anywhere in our family room without stepping on one. If you have ever stepped on a Lego piece with the arch of your foot, you know that doesn't feel too good! I knew that we needed to take a break for a while from buying them.  Dominic's private speech therapist gave us the option of taking part of his allowance to our local bank and have him deposit it into his bank account, but I want Dominic to get the f...

Yesterday was a HUGE milestone. Do you want to know what it was?!?!?! Well, I will tell you! It was five years almost to the day that Dominic has been going to his barber, Vince. Dominic was 11 when he went to Vince for the first time. He just turned 16 in July. Vince has watched Dominic grow from a boy into a man. In case you were wondering, both Vince and Dominic had on their respective masks during the haircut . They removed it briefly for the picture! So, for those of you without sensory sensitivities, getting a haircut can be challenging because of the bright lights; the noise of the hairdryers, people and the clippers; having someone touching their head and lastly, the smell of chemicals. For most of us, those things wouldn't bother us or we block it out. For those with Autism or sensory sensitivities, it can be very difficult.  Before Michigan lifted the restrictions for getting a haircut, I asked Dominic a bunch of times if he wanted me to cut his hair. ...

Before this Pandemic took over, Dominic was pretty "set" in his ways. Trying anything new and out of his "comfort zone" was not anything at all on his radar screen. As are many on the Autism Spectrum, changes in Dominic's routine are not always easily accepted. Since we are living in a different world now, I have used this time with Dominic to not only work on his social skills, but to also try new things.  When the opportunity to sign Dominic up for a "virtual" music camp in June arose, I really had no expectations that he would be engaged and participate. We had tried this particular camp in-person and it was too overwhelming for him and I never signed him up for it again. Much to my surprise, he LOVED it!! The camp had just the right mix of breaks and participation. Based on that positive reaction, I signed him up for another camp similar to the one he did in June. The "Showcase" is this coming Wednesday night and Dominic will be singing,...

There was a news story a while back that you may have missed and I feel that it is still important to talk about. It was about a very popular YouTuber named Myka Stauffer.  I had never heard of her until my daughter, Lauren, forwarded me an article about her. Myka Stauffer and her husband had adopted a son from China, who was named Huxley. After finding out he had Autism and other disabilities, they decided that he should be placed with a different family. The Stauffer's already have four biological children. Evidently, some of Myka Stauffer's followers were asking what happened to Huxley since he wasn't in any of the videos she was posting. About a month ago, Myka Stauffer and her husband made a video explaining where Huxley had went. There was a lot of negative fall out from the video including tons of judgment. Everyone seemed to have an opinion. Very few supported her decision to return him.  What I learned from one of my best friends is that you shouldn't judge oth...

So, we did it . This afternoon, for the first time since the Pandemic started, I took Dominic to a public place, our local post office. We needed to mail something by Priority Mail as well as buy some stamps. Before we went, I had put it on his daily schedule and showed him the Social Story for using a face mask. The only other time we had tried to get him to wear a mask was a handful of weeks back and he took it off after 30 seconds, so I was VERY apprehensive about him keeping it on the entire time we were at the post office.  Before deciding to take him, I talked about it all morning with the hubby and Lauren. Even though I am on two medications for my Generalized Anxiety Disorder, I still, once in a great while, get that old familiar feeling in the pit of my stomach, that unpleasant pre-worrying feeling. Anyways, I asked Dominic if he wanted to take the Social Story with us in the car on our way to the post office and he said no. Once we pulled into the parking lot, I put on...

As we continue through navigating our new "normal," one thing in particular has stood out to me as far as parenting Dominic goes. No one can make it alone through this. I'm sure you have heard the saying, "it takes a village to raise a child."   Never has that been more true than doing these unusual times we are currently living in. After I had Lauren, I had two miscarriages. When I got pregnant with Dominic, I was worried every single day that I would have another miscarriage. I think I knew deep down from the time he was born that something wasn't quite right. When he was diagnosed with Autism at age 2 1/2, it surprised me, but not really. As the diagnoses started stacking up, ADHD and Generalized Anxiety Disorder at age 3 and then Complex Partial Epilepsy five years ago, I knew that we needed additional support. Say what you will about Facebook (I know not everyone likes it), but for those parenting children and adults with disabilities (such as our fami...

I used to make a daily walk a priority. As I had gotten more and more busy over these past few years, I would find every excuse I could to not walk. I'm too tired, I'm too out of shape, I have a heart condition, etc. My husband tried to encourage me, but I ended up taking offense at his not so "gentle" suggestions. He stopped after a while.  Up until the past four weeks of this Quarantine, I would come to the end of the day and realize I hadn't set foot outside of our house at all! Not even to get the mail from our mailbox.   Yikes .   Lauren has been temporarily living with us and she kept asking me to go for a walk. I kept telling her no, until I decided that for my mental health, I really needed to get out of the house at a minimum, once a day. I am so incredibly thankful to her and her persistence, because we are now on week 4 of our family "walks!!" The first week or two, I had to come home and lie down after our walk because I was exhausted.  ...

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...

When the Quarantine first started, I spent the first week trying to replicate what Dominic did at school on a daily basis and unfortunately, he had a seizure that Friday, March 20. The next week, I let him do whatever he wanted because I had a huge case of mom “guilt” that I had caused it. Secretly, in the back of my mind, I was hoping the Quarantine would last two weeks and things could go back to the way they were. As we all know, that hasn’t happened yet (at least here in Michigan). The third week, I started using a whiteboard for Dominic’s detailed “schedule” as well as having him write his daily chores in a spiral notebook. Dominic has had a handful of chores for well over a year now (a fabulous idea from his private speech therapist), but what I began to notice, is that I was starting to give him additional chores, many of them life skills that he will be able to carry with him throughout his life, whether he always lives with us or not.  Some of his new chores include m...

This past Friday night was the second time Dominic went to the Tim Tebow's Night to Shine Prom . For those of you that don't know what that is, I will tell you!  For one night a year in February, over 700 churches from around the United States and the world host a Prom for those with differing needs. It doesn't cost a dime to attend and as long as you are at least 14 you can attend, there is no maximum age. There are dances at Dominic's high school (Homecoming, etc.)  and each time I have suggested to him to go, his response has always been a resounding no. He doesn't have enough language to tell me why he doesn't want to go, so it remains a bit of a mystery. I have my own thoughts as to why - too crowded, too loud and flashing lights. A prime setup for an Epileptic seizure. He's had 10 seizures in the past 4 1/2 years. There is a memory that is seared permanently into my mind from elementary school. This would have been approximately 1973 or so. We were ...

When I first started writing this blog back in 2011, it was because it had been a traumatic year and I felt that I needed a way to get my emotions out. One of my first posts was about my mother-in-law who had passed away in January. 2011 ended with me getting diagnosed with Congestive Heart Failure and spending the night in the hospital. As I started sharing my different experiences such as watching my daughter go off to college, little by little, the stress I had been holding in, seemed to dissipate. I could write about my aging parents, Dominic's different disabilities, and what it's like to be a stepmom. I have been told that my blog is kind of like the way I talk.  I am grateful and humbled when someone takes the time and reads a post. Yeah, I could sit out in front of my house in a lawn chair and tell my story to the people driving by, but writing a blog post and putting it out into the Internet reaches a lot more people. I had one of my blog posts on Yahoo less than ...