Autism Mom

I’m a mom of a 4 year old little girl with Autism. It’s often lonely or frustrating to compare our situation to others. One minute I’m being told she’s high functioning, and the next her behavior is out of control. (wk 1- Unwilling Advocate Post)
She has problems with comprehension, tantrums ( massive meltdowns), hitting, biting. We had unredeemed Moe’s Meltdown paralleled by recent dollar store victory. (Wk 1 posts)

She didn’t use to let use hold her hands, touch her hair, brush her teeth, or even be out in public. Changes in routine make for interesting days. We may have 5 good days and then 2 bad ones. Sometimes the reverse is true. (Wk 2)

She was diagnosed with Autism Disorder when she was still one years old (almost 2), and we received early intervention. Sometimes EI proved to be a joke. Early Intervention, in practical terms is just good parenting with feedback from professionals and a whole lot of testing and pamphlets. – I’m going to write an entire post about that, Our privacy acts were grossly ignored (wk 3)

The direction of her development has changed a lot of our fears. She didn’t start to walk until 2, and she didn’t start to talk until 3. Both of those things don’t really go hand in hand with Autism, but they did get us to consider testing. (Wk4)

I still think there must be several subtypes of Autism, which I think I’ll delve into. (beyond the subtypes of PDD – wk 5)

Once we found an ABA classroom, EVERYTHING got a lot better! Routines help, no – ROUTINES are MANDATORY for learning to progress. Without her teachers I would have lost it.(wk6)

I have some days where I can’t cope and I need help from family.I was trying to do all this alone, as a single mom. Having a great new partner has increased my daughter’s progress in many many ways. He’s the one who found the school and supports our goals.(wk7)

We wrote out a coping list together. We talk about her problems, and we tough it out. I’m thankful for him, because he helped me to love her. (wk 8 )

I’m working on my Master’s degree in Special Education, and working with several older students with disabilities and abilities that vary tremendously. I love talking about where all this may be heading now. i learned about independent living after 18. I used to have the huge crying episodes when I thought about my daughter never experiencing a white wedding or family life. (wk 9)

Sometimes I still get frustrated with simple things:

“Is it the shots (wk10) – debate”; “High functioning?”(wk11)

“Stay in, Stay out”(Wk11)

“Public or Private Schools.” (wk 12)

“Working Autism mom, or stay at home”(wk13)

Fun side of life now:

Fundraiser dinners(wk14)

Walk for Autism(wk15)

Autism Interventions in the classroom, my coursework based on research(wk16)

Special needs awareness & being part of a larger group of tough moms with huge hearts – taking advice from mom’s who’ve been on this same journey (Wk16)

I’ll be attempting to write lots of thorough blogs on each of these topics that I’ve learned from our own journey. I’ll try to post them in the areas outlined here. Please be patient with me along this journey. I’ve never taken the time to write about all of this, I’m too busy living it.

I hope you will find a bit of yourself in my writing. Feel free to laugh with me on the good days and maybe tear up a bit on the tough ones. Thanks for reading.