My mother used to say, “I can’t have anything nice with kids in the house!” She didn’t so much say it as she did wail it. We were the kids who came swinging in through the kitchen window feet first from the eaves of the roof, or accidentally lit the garage on fire. The security system in the house was basically just a trigger mechanism for the neighbor’s rage. His first thought, I’m guessing, … [Read more...]
Those Words that Let Us Know We Aren’t Alone
I brought my son Max to a neurophysiologist’s office for an evaluation. If you aren’t familiar with a “neuropsych eval,” it is a two-hour process in which you must: 1) Sit 2) Remain sitting 3) Give the allusion that you are paying attention while you remain sitting. Back then, when Max was nine years old, and already years into the diagnosis of autism, fulfilling any of these three … [Read more...]
What Our Kids “CAN’T DO”
It’s so easy to talk about all the things our kids can do, are doing, and will do, but for those of us with children having special needs, one might be heard talking about the things our children “can’t” do. I tend to do that because often those are the things that concern me the most, and the things I most wish he “could” do. But recently I began to think (as I have thought on other occasions) … [Read more...]
The Making of Us
What could have been our undoing has actually become the making of us, our family. It's God's hand in piecing together a family that only he could have woven together. We aren't polished, fancy-pants or hardly anything special from the outside. In fact, we can be fairly obnoxious and messy. And that's on a good day. We walked in the door close to midnight after prom night. Evan had … [Read more...]
Anxious Minds
“I have a theory about Caillou,” Noah says. I have been bent over, picking things up in the front hallway. My three have been away from me, testing the patience of my parents for two weeks while I've finished my next book. So this mess, today? I’m okay with it. It’s proves they’re here. And I’ve missed them fiercely. “Dying, huh? Well, this should be interesting.” I stand up and face him. I … [Read more...]
How God Used Autism to Teach Me to Pray
Read below for a guest post from Melody Grewal. My twelve year-old son has non-verbal autism. He is also tall and big for his age. I've never known a time when doing anything in public with him wasn't hard. Even when he was a portable baby, his senses easily overloaded, and we often had to make hasty exits to avoid crying meltdowns. Now when Isaiah's senses get overloaded, he may suddenly … [Read more...]