bountifulplate

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 ...

Raise your hand if going to the dentist is your absolute favorite place in the world to go. Our "journey" with finding the right pediatric dentist has been YEARS in the making.  My anxiety at one point was so high, I totally avoided taking him. We tried the dentist my husband and I go to and Dominic hopped out of the chair and wouldn't cooperate. We went to a dentist that everyone said was wonderful and she automatically wanted to sedate him after seeing him for 30 seconds. Yet another time, we tried a dentist that a bunch of my friends said was the best around and he didn't really try and work with him. So, after asking a friend of mine who used to practice Dentistry, I finally got another dentist to try. I loved this fourth dental practice the moment I walked in the front door. The front staff, the hygienist and the dentist all tried really hard with Dominic. After him non-cooperating, it was mutually decided that he would need to go to our local hospital and g...